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# Russia surveilling students for online LGBTQ+ activity
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/russia-surveilling-students-for-online-lgbtq-activity/
- Published: 2020-09-14T07:30:03.000Z
- Updated: 2020-09-13T10:58:35.000Z
- Description: The Russian LGBT Network has reported teachers are told to gather information about their student’s online activity to ensure they are not engaging with LGBTQ+ content.
- Author: Rachel Badham
- Tags: News, Politics, LGBTQ, Russia

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/social-media-phone2-1.jpg)

The **[Russian LGBT Network](https://lgbtnet.org/ru/newseng/administraciya-nevskogo-rayona-hotela-privlekat-shkolnikov-za-propagandu?ref=scenemag.co.uk)** has reported the schooling administration of the Nevsky district of **St. Petersburg** (**Russia**) instructed teachers to gather information about their student’s online activity to ensure they are not engaging with LGBTQ+ content. The LGBT Network claims to have screenshots of messages from a teacher which indicates they were told to check the personal networking pages of students.

If a student’s social media contained ‘LGBTQ+ symbols’ such as a rainbow flag, teachers were reportedly asked to create a file on the child which included their address and physical descriptions. The surveillance is based on the notion that engaging with LGBTQ+ online content would be breaching Russia’s ‘gay propaganda law’. This law criminalises any activity which is deemed to ‘promote’ the LGBTQ+ community. It has been [condemned](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40338637?ref=scenemag.co.uk) by many LGBTQ+ groups and activists for ‘encouraging homophobia’.

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/russia-lgbt-arrests-600-400.jpg)

Although same-sex relations are not illegal in Russia, the LGBTQ+ community are frequently subjected to [discrimination](https://www.equaldex.com/region/russia?ref=scenemag.co.uk). The monitoring of student’s [represents](https://www.them.us/story/russia-surveilling-students-social-media-lgbtq-activity?ref=scenemag.co.uk) the latest example of Russian authorities policing LGBTQ+ voices.

**Aleksandr Belik**, a lawyer for the Russian LGBT Network, said *“such monitoring is illegal. Educational organizations do not have the power to collect material on administrative offences, and teachers do not have a duty to monitor social networks in their job descriptions.”*

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/putin-rainbow-600-400.jpg)