A judge in Russia’s Novgorod region has fined a local man 1,500 rubles (about $20) for posting allegedly extremist symbols on social media. Court records identify the offending materials as two images shared on VKontakte in 2020: a meme featuring the cartoon frog Pepe in a rainbow wig, and a photo of early 20th-century German Marxist thinkers and revolutionary activists Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, which also included a pride flag. The local police officer who filed charges against Georgy Rezankov described the rainbow images as “a symbol of the international LGBT social movement,” which Russia’s Supreme Court banned in November 2023.
In court, Rezankov pleaded not guilty and said the Pepe cartoon had “become its own kind of philosophy and has nothing to do with LGBT.” He argued that the image of Zetkin and Luxemburg with a rainbow flag also “doesn’t indicate LGBT propaganda, although some researchers believe the two women had a close relationship and lived together.”
Even though Rezankov shared the images years before Russia outlawed the “international LGBT social movement,” the judge ruled his online activity a “continuing offense” and concluded that he “bears personal responsibility for the content published on his social media page.”
In January 2024, Russia issued its first fine for sharing images of rainbow flags online. Photoartist Inna Mosina was fined 1,500 rubles for posting the “extremist symbol” on her Instagram account in December 2023, a month before Russia’s anti-gay ban formally took effect.