Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
The first prosecutions for rainbow-themed items under the guise of preventing extremism have begun in Russia, resulting in two fines and one jail sentence. A court in Nizhny Novgorod ordered Anastasia Yershova to serve five days in jail after she was approached by several men demanding she remove her rainbow-coloured frog earrings, Mediazona reports. In November the Russian supreme court classified the nebulous coalition that constitutes LGBTQIA+ activism as an “extremist organisation”, and symbols including rainbows are considered propaganda. The defence came down to: indigo. While the banned Pride rainbow has six colours, her lawyers argued that Yershova’s earrings had seven, and therefore were not a symbol of extremism. This did not sway the court and she was sentenced regardless. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Putin, told Mediazona: “I am not aware of any laws that ban rainbows in Russia.”