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In this conference paper, we describe the collection and representation of data on anti-LGBTQIA+ persecution in Russia, when courts impose administrative penalties on individuals and organisations based on Articles 6.21 and 6.21.2 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences. We put the collected incidents into a knowledge graph, which enabled us to study administrative persecution systematically, revealing connections between the incidents.

We aggregated court decisions penalising people and organisations for the so-called “LGBT propaganda” in Russia over twelve years. Our paper describing the data collection and representation has been published in the SEMANTiCS conference proceedings and received the Best Poster award.

We monitor persecution targeting LGBTQIA+ expression in Russia. This dataset results from our monitoring. We collected incidents of administrative persecution against individuals and organisations for the so-called “LGBT propaganda” from open sources: court documents, mass media and social media. Having such incidents in a structured form enables us to investigate connections between cases and identify patterns of persecution. Others can freely reuse this dataset. Read more in the detailed documentation below.

On 17 November, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) published a hate crime report for 2024. The data are provided by the participating states and civil society organisations, including Dataout. We identified anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes in Russia by analysing court rulings.

Scammers, robbers, and attackers are exploiting the “LGBT extremism” and “gay propaganda” laws to threaten LGBTQIA+ people and justify crimes against them. We found several recent cases illustrating how perpetrators weaponise these discriminatory laws. It might be a sign of escalating persecution of LGBTQIA+ people in Russia. As evidence from other countries shows, discriminatory laws become a tool of violence for both the state and non-state groups, such as vigilantes.

Discriminatory anti-LGBTQIA+ laws have been in force in Russia for more than a decade. We publish research and data revealing the harmful consequences of these laws. The goal is to gather evidence necessary for future legal reform and condemnation of the Russian discriminatory state policies.

We identified more than 1,200 hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in Russia by analysing court decisions. We extracted the texts of court rulings from several sources and queried keyword in them to identify cases related to hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In the databse, we registered the types of crimes, the number of victims and fatalities, and whether crimes were committed by organised groups.

Officially, statistics on hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in Russia have never been collected. By analysing openly published rulings of Russian courts for the past 14 years, we have identified over 1,200 such crimes. Because these are only the cases that reached the court, the real number of crimes can be much higher. The number of crimes, including premeditated group attacks, has significantly increased since the adoption of the discriminatory “gay propaganda” law in 2013.