Russia's parliament is to consider a nationwide ban on "homosexual propaganda", in a move activists likened to a Soviet-era crackdown.
Nine regions including St Petersburg have already passed legislation prohibiting the promotion of "homosexual propaganda" among minors. The Duma, Russia's parliament, will consider the nationwide ban on 19 December.
"This is an illegal policy of repression," said Igor Kochetkov, head of the LGBT Network, a Russian gay rights group. "It's a strange coincidence that this law will be looked at on 19 December, and on 17 December 1933, the Soviet authorities made sexual relations between men illegal. They argued that gays were alien to Soviet society. Now and then, we hear the same rhetoric."
Russia lifted its Soviet-era ban on homosexuality in 1993. Recent moves clamping down on gay rights have come amid a wider government push to promote traditional values and conservatism, often in concert with the Russian Orthodox church.