By Lucy Papachristou
June 29 (Reuters) - A Russian court has jailed the owner of an LGBT nightclub and two of the club's employees in what it said was the first case brought under a ban on what Moscow calls the "LGBT movement".
The court said on Monday that the three defendants, who were arrested after police raided the "Pose" club in the southwestern city of Orenburg two years ago, had organised and participated in activities of an "extremist organisation".
Pose owner Vyacheslav Khasanov, 37, received a seven-year jail term and was ordered to pay a fine of 1 million roubles ($12,755). Club manager Diana Kamilyanova, 30, was jailed for six years and three months, and art director Alexander Klimov, 23, for two years and three months.
All three denied guilt.
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has cracked down on LGBT rights, portraying them as a Western invention that threatens traditional Russian values based on family, nation and Orthodox Christian faith.
Russia's Supreme Court designated the "LGBT movement" as extremist in 2023 and those supporting it have been designated as terrorists, paving the way for serious criminal cases against members of the LGBT community and their advocates.
Music-hosting sites and online film distributors are routinely fined for hosting LGBT content. Staff members of a Russian book publisher were questioned by authorities in April for possible "LGBT propaganda" in its book catalogue.
POLICE RAID
Pose had operated since 2021 and regularly hosted drag parties, but started marketing itself as a "parody bar theatre" as LGBT restrictions mounted, according to Russian independent news outlet Mediazona.
In March 2024, the club was raided by Orenburg regional authorities and Russia's National Guard.
Footage published online by a far-right group showed clubgoers standing with their hands raised while masked members of the group swarmed through the venue's neon-lit rooms. Other people lay on the floor, their hands crossed above their heads.
The court said the three defendants had "under the guise of running a nightclub, organised events centred on the common theme of demonstrating affiliation with people of non-traditional sexual orientation for an unspecific group of the venue's patrons."
Russian LGBT rights lawyers have said the Orenburg case will serve as a precedent for future prosecutions against LGBT people and their advocates and destroy "safe havens" for LGBT people in Russia.
($1 = 78.4000 roubles)
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
