A prominent Russian gay rights activist was convicted on Friday of spreading "gay propaganda" among minors in the first such ruling in Russia's modern history.
Nikolai Alexeyev told the Associated Press that a city court in St. Petersburg fined him 5,000 rubles ($170) for breaching the law, which was controversially introduced by lawmakers in Russia's second-largest city in February. He pledged to appeal the decision.
Gay rights activists say the legislation could be used to ban public demonstrations. Alexeyev was briefly detained last month after he picketed the city hall in St. Petersburg with a poster which said that "homosexuality is not a perversion."