Ignoring his war on his own LGBT citizens, a Russian advocacy group has nominated Vladimir Putin for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Calling the president of Russia more worthy than President Barack Obama, the International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World — which no one has ever heard of before, and a Google search leads to only their nomination of Putin — cites Putin’s work on removing Syria’s chemical weapons as their motivation.
The New York Times notes that Putin “is credited with commanding a war to crush separatism in Chechnya, approving a full-scale attack on Georgia over a minor border dispute and complaining when NATO led an air war in Libya to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from killing thousands of Libyans. And he is still selling weapons to the murderous government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.”
The group held a news conference to announce their nomination, UPI reports:
“Barack Obama is the man who has initiated and approved the United States’ aggressive actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he is preparing for an invasion into Syria. He bears this title nevertheless,” Iosif Kobzon, a popular singer known as “Russia’s Frank Sinatra” and a member of the State Duma, said at the news conference.
“Our president, who tries to stop the bloodshed and who tries to help the conflict situation with political dialogue, is, in my view, more worthy of this high title,” the non-government Interfax news agency quoted Kobzon as saying.
Putin signed a law this year that effectively bans being gay, or even discussing homosexuality, in public. Two people of the same gender, holding hands in public, or kissing, could be arrested for “promoting” homosexuality. Even “liking” a photo of two people of the same gender, holding hands, or kissing, could lead to arrest and steep fines. Foreigners who break the law face jail time and deportation. And foreign visas are being declined for fear outsiders will import “homosexual propaganda.”
LGBT people are routinely targeted, beaten, and bullied in Russia. There are reports of neo-Nazi gangs raping and murdering young gay men, after luring them via social media on “dates.”
Although the International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World sent their nomination to the Nobel committee last month, they missed the February deadline. No word on if they will try again.
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Image: YouTube screenshot
Related:
Putin Doubles Down: ‘Europeans Are Dying Out — And Gay Marriages Don’t Produce Children’
Watch: Russian Lawmaker Says Gay People ‘Rape Kids’
Watch: Russian Police Detain 10 LGBT Activists In Sochi
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