The police authorities registered the offices of the largest book editor in Russia and arrested several employees about alleged LGBTQ+ “propaganda” and “extremism,” Russian rights and rights groups reported Thursday.
According to the state news agency Tass, 11 EKSMO Publishing House employees were arrested Wednesday. Three have been accused of distributing the “LGBT propaganda” and participate in “extremist” activities, according to lawyer Maxim Olenichev or the legal defense group OTDEL.
The authorities accuse employees of advertising literature with LGBTQ+issues, said Pervero Otdel. The Russian Supreme Court prohibited the so -called “International LGBT public movement” as an extremist organization in 2023, even thought that such an entity does not exist formally.
According to reports, those arrested on Wednesday include EKSMO senior managers, as well as personnel of their shipping and accounting departments. The OVD-INFO Rights Group and BBC Russia indicated that at least two of those arrested were no longer employed by EKSMO at the time of their judgments.
Tass, citing the editor, later informed that his distribution leader He was released after being questioned by the police. Eksmo said he was cooperating with the investigation.
After police searches and judges, EKSMO, according to the reports, sent to its commercial partners a list of 50 books marked by the authorities that violate the laws of Russia against the “LGBT propaganda”, according to the Europe of Novaya Gazeta.
Among those books is the sales success of the majority of 221 at the age of majority “Summer in a pioneer tie”, originally published by Popcorn Books, in which EKSMO acquired a majority participation last year.
Popcorn Books was the first editor directed under the anti-LGBTQ+ Expanded Russia legislation.
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