Law enforcement authorities browsed the workplaces of Russias largest book publisher and arrested a number of workers over alleged LGBTQ+ propaganda and extremism, Russian media and rights groups reported Thursday.According to the state-run TASS news agency, 11 employees of Eksmo Publishing House were detained on Wednesday.
3 have been charged with distributing LGBT propaganda and taking part in extremist activities, according to lawyer Maxim Olenichev of the legal advocacy group Perviy Otdel.Authorities implicate the staff members of releasing literature with LGBTQ+ styles, Perviy Otdel said.
Russias Supreme Court forbade the so-called worldwide LGBT public movement as an extremist company in 2023, despite the fact that no such entity formally exists.Those arrested on Wednesday reportedly consist of Eksmos senior supervisors, in addition to staff from its shipping and accounting departments.
The rights group OVD-Info and BBC Russia noted that at least 2 of those apprehended were no longer used by Eksmo at the time of their arrests.TASS, pointing out the publisher, later on reported that its head of distributionwas launched after being questioned by the cops.
Eksmo stated it was cooperating with the investigation.Following the cops searches and arrests, Eksmo supposedly sent its company partners a list of 50 books flagged by authorities as breaking Russias laws against LGBT propaganda, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe.Among those books is the 2021 coming-of-age bestseller Summer in a Pioneer Tie, originally released by Popcorn Books, in which Eksmo obtained a bulk stake in 2023.
Popcorn Books was the very first publisher targeted under Russias broadened anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.