This Human Rights Watch video was compiled mainly through cell phone clips freely and proudly shared on the Internet. Released four days prior to the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the video includes the beatings of gays and lesbians in Russia.
HRW notes that abuse is worsening. Not only do the authorities refuse to act; they can take part in the abuse. State- sponsored and state-controlled media outlets are publicly calling LGBT people “perverts,” “sodomites,” and “abnormal,” and have conflated homosexuality with pedophilia.
As HRW notes:
The deputy director of a government television and radio holding and also one of the leading talk show hosts proposed to “burn or bury” the hearts of gay organ donors rather than use them for transplants because they are “unfit to continue anyone’s life.”
It’s tempting to just pass this off as “those Russians.” That’s a mistake. Anyone who watches this video will be astonished and sickened by the blatant nature of these attacks. Russia is a party to important human rights treaties and needs to be held accountable.
President Obama has been active on this, declining himself to attend (along with the First Lady and vice president) and naming openly gay athletes to the US delegation attending the Games. France and Germany have also declined to send heads of state. But more is needed on the international front. Olympic sponsors need to follow the lead of corporations like AT&T, which today became the first major U.S. corporation to publicly condemn the anti-LGBT Russian law outlawing “homosexual propaganda.”
Even though, as the statement points out, the company isn’t an IOC sponsor, it has funded the United States Olympic Committee. Coca-Cola, Dow, GE, Panasonic, Proctor&Gamble, McDonalds, Samsung and Visa need to step up and issue equally clear statements.
McDonalds has come under heavy fire for launching its #CheersToSochi campaign as gay activists were attached in the streets. As Scott Wooledge noted in his article on the Huffington Post:
Legions of LGBT protesters outnumbered everyone else in the feed. McDonald’s had particularly bad timing. It was ill-conceived to launch this campaign while the sting was still fresh from reports of Olympic security officials tackling a young LGBT activist at a torch relay. It couldn’t have helped that Jon Stewart was just about to focus his razor-sharp wit on the “Homophobic Olympics” Tuesday night.
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