Antécédents de l'affaire: Lena Klimova

Le 25 octobre 2016, le tribunal régional de Kaluga a donné raison à l'appel de la défenseuse des droits LGBTI Lena Klimova contre la décision du tribunal du district de Kaluga de bloquer l'accès à la page du groupe Children-404 sur un réseau social. Le tribunal régional de Kaluga a infirmé la décision précédente et a statué en faveur de Lena Klimova.

Lena Klimova est une journaliste basée à Nizhny Tagil; elle est l'auteure d'une série d'articles sur les adolescents LBGTI (Lesbiennes, gays, bisexuels et transgenre et intersexués). En 2013, elle a créé une communauté en ligne sur Facebook et sur le réseau social Vkontakte, nommée Children-404, qui offre aux adolescents un espace où ils peuvent discuter de la question LGBTI et se soutenir les uns les autres. La communauté organise aussi des discussions en ligne avec les leaders du mouvement LGBTI. Lena Klimova est victime de menaces homophobes, notamment de menaces de mort, à cause de son travail légitime et pacifique en faveur des adolescents LGBTI en Fédération de Russie.

Le 20 janvier 2016, le tribunal du district de Kaluga avait reconnu Lena Klimova coupable de "promotion des relations sexuelles non traditionnelles à des mineurs" et la page de Children-404 a été bloquée sur le réseau social Vkontakte. Dans son appel contre la décision du tribunal du district de Kaluga, la défenseuse a souligné qu'elle n'avait pas été informée des procédures judiciaires.  Par conséquent, Lena Klimova n'avait pas pu se défendre contre les allégations de propagande proférées contre elle. En outre, le tribunal régional de Kaluga a reconnu que les procédures du tribunal du district n'avaient pas examiné le contenu de la page de Children-404 et qu'il avait pris sa décision uniquement en se basant sur la demande du procureur. À ce jour, la page est toujours bloquée sur le réseau social.

C'est la seconde fois que le groupe Children-404 est bloqué par une décision du tribunal. En septembre 2015, l'accès de la page du groupe avait été bloqué par le tribunal de la ville de Barnaul. Cependant, dans cette affaire, Lena Klimova n'avait pas gagné en appel et une seconde page de Children-404 avait été créée sur le réseau social.

Front Line Defenders salue la décision du tribunal régional de Kaluga et exhorte les autorités de Fédération de Russie à débloquer l'accès à la page du groupe Children-404 sur les réseaux sociaux, et à ne plus harceler, judiciairement ou autre, Lena Klimova.

In the evening of 7 November 2014, three policemen from the local police station in Nizhny Tagil arrived at Lena Klimova's home to question her in relation to Children-404. They asked her specifically about her project and the reason that she used social network site Vkontakte to discuss these issues, suggesting that inappropriate images of children were being published on the site. Among other documents, the police brought a copy of a letter from the assistant of the Russian Ombudsman for Children which was addressed to the General Prosecutor and which accused Children-404 of “forming a positive attitude to homosexuality among minors”. The letter urged the authorities to block the Children-404 group on Vkontakte.

On 10 November 2014, Lena Klimova received a telegram from the Central Federal Department of Roskomnadzor stating that the authorities found evidence that the Children-404 group on Vkontakte was involved in spreading “non-traditional sexual relationships propaganda among minors”. Lena Klimova was summoned to the Roskomnadzor department in Moscow on 18 November 2014 in order to draw up a report of the administrative offence. However, she refused to travel to the Roskomnadzor offices in Moscow as where she lives in Nizhny Tagil is approximately 1770 kilometres from Moscow.

On 17 November 2014, the Roskomnadzor department stated that it had received approximately 150 petitions from individuals as well as organisations demanding an enquiry into the legality of the Children-404 group's activities. On 18 November 2014, the department filed an administrative case against Lena Klimova and the Children-404 group. According to the administrative case report, Children-404 published materials that may cause minors to associate “being gay as being a courageous, strong, confident, persistent person, having dignity and self-respect”. The administrative case is due to be submitted to the First Instance Court. A date for the court hearing has not yet been scheduled. If found guilty, Lena Klimova could receive a fine of up to 100,000 Russian roubles (approximately 1720 euro) and all Children-404 publications and social media accounts may be banned or blocked by the authorities.

On 31 January 2014, the Nizhny Tagil department of the Ministry of the Interior launched an administrative case against Ms Lena Klimova for 'propaganda of non traditional sexual relations among minors' under Article 6.21 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation.

The complaint against Lena Klimova as initiator of the Children-404 page was lodged by Mr. Vitaly Milonov, a member of St. Petersburg City Parliament who sponsored the adoption of the 'propaganda law' at the municipal level in 2012. Lena Klimova was informed about the opening of the administrative case against her on 31 January 2014. She was previously summoned by police and interrogated in relation to Milonov's complaint on 17 January 2014. The date of the trial is yet to be set.

In March 2013, Lena Klimova published a series of articles on the situation of teenagers who are aware of their homosexuality. She began to receive a large number of responses from adolescents and teenagers with stories of their experiences and the discrimination they faced. She set up the project Children-404 as a result of this response, to provide a forum where these letters could be shared.

In June 2013, the Russian Parliament adopted a federal law banning ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’ among minors. The text does not provide a definition of ‘non-traditional relations’, which are only described in opposition to ‘traditional family values’, but the bill was passed in its first reading under the headline ‘propaganda of homosexuality among minors’. Propaganda is broadly defined as spreading information in order to form non-traditional sexual desires in children, describing such relations as attractive, promoting a distorted understanding of the social equality of traditional and non-traditional relations and through unwanted exposure to information that could provoke interest in such relations.