Belarusian lawmakers to soon consider anti-LGBTQ+ bill

TALLINN, Estonia — A bill in Belarus that would outlaw the promotion of homosexuality and other behavior is set to land on lawmakers’ desks amid an unwavering crackdown on dissent initiated by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. “The activities of opponents who are trying to destroy traditional family values, and therefore morality and statehood, are generally aimed at destroying Belarus as a country,” Shved said on Belarusian television, warning that it was necessary to “prevent even discussion” of such topics. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for the past three decades, is an open critic of homosexuality, and has declared publicly that “it is better to be a dictator than to be gay.” Human rights organizations in Belarus report pressure on LGBTQ+ people from the KGB state security service, which recruits members of the community by blackmailing them with the threat of making their sexual orientation public. In 2023, independent gay rights group ILGA-Europe said Belarus ranked 45th out of 49 countries in its annual survey of the freedoms of LGBTQ+ people in Europe and Central Asia, noting that “pro-government propagandists regularly call for persecution of LGBT activists.” Since the start of an unrelenting crackdown on dissent in August 2020, after an election the opposition and the West denounced as a sham gave Lukashenko his sixth term in office, LGBTQ+ people have begun leaving Belarus en masse, seeking political asylum in the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. The ruling was part of a crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in the increasingly conservative country where “traditional family values” have become a cornerstone of President Vladimir Putin’s 24-year rule.