(Reuters) – The Belarusian government has prepared a bill sanctioning the “promotion of non-traditional relations”, referring to LGBT relationships, state news agency Belta reported on Monday.
Belta cited Prosecutor General Andrei Shved, who said in a speech to parliamentarians that a bill had been prepared, establishing administrative responsibility for the promotion of “abnormal relationships, pedophilia and voluntary refusal of ‘have children”.
The bill is currently undergoing an approval procedure, he added.
An anti-gay propaganda law has been in force in neighboring Russia since 2013, banning any public expression of LGBT behavior or lifestyles.
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Last December, Russia’s Supreme Court banned what it called an “international LGBT social movement,” designating it an extremist organization.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Belarus in 1994, but the country does not recognize same-sex marriages, and authorities have cracked down on LGBT pride marches.
Close to Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has publicly mocked LGBT people, calling homosexuals “perverted” and a “supreme abomination” in a speech last year to political leaders.
(Report by Lucy Papachristou; French version by Stéphanie Hamel, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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