Kazakhstan has passed a Russian-style bill banning gay “propaganda,” reports Pink News.
The upper house of the Central Asian country voted in favor of the bill banning “propaganda of a non-traditional sexual orientation” in order to protect children "from information harmful to their health and development.”
The bill’s sponsor Aldan Smayil, a member of the lower chamber of the Kazakh parliament, said:
“[The law] provides a ban on information products depicting cruelty and violence, provoking children to life-threatening acts, including suicide, containing scenes of pornographic, sexual and erotic nature, promoting non-traditional sexual orientation.”
In a statement, Susan Corke, director of Eurasia programs at Freedom House, said that despite the government’s claims, the law “is simply a disguise for discrimination and intolerance that will allow government censors to punish speech they don’t like.”
At a press conference last year calling for the implementation of gay "propaganda" laws, Kazakh politician Dauren Babamuratov said that gay people can be easily identified by blood testing for “degeneracy." Akim Imangali Tasmagambetov, mayor of capital city Astana, accused global media brainwashing children with gay propaganda.
Watch a Human Rights Watch report on the extortion and torture of gay men by Kazakh police:
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