Belarus' parliament outlaws LGBTQ+ "propaganda"https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/04/belarus-parliament-outlaws-lgbtq-propaganda/ 🔗John Russell (3 April 2026)
Belarus is following Russia's lead in outlawing so-called LGBTQ+ "propaganda."
On Thursday, the former Soviet republic's parliament approved a bill making "propaganda of homosexual relations, gender change, refusal to have children, and pedophilia" crimes. Punishment for such offenses would include fines, community labor, and 15 days of detention, the Associated Press reports.
While the country decriminalized homosexuality in 1994, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus lacks basic protections for LGBTQ+ rights. LGBTQ+ rights groups, including TG House, say the community is routinely targeted by the country's security forces, which have raided nightclubs and private parties and blackmailed LGBTQ+ people into cooperation. In 2022, the AP reported that Belarusian security forces raided the home of a gay couple in Minsk, the country's capital, brutally beating them.
The country's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has been pushing for a law similar to Russia's for years. In 2013, Russia instituted a law banning LGBTQ+ "propaganda" in the presence of children. Nearly a decade later, in 2022, the law was expanded to effectively outlaw all public expressions of LGBTQ+ identity and support for the community. The following year, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a law banning gender-affirming care and denying transgender people the right to marry or adopt children, and the country's Supreme Court declared the international LGBTQ+ rights movement an "extremist organization."
