{"id":1306,"date":"2015-03-16T13:50:25","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T13:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/susiearmitage\/a-fake-childrens-ombudsman-is-targeting-russian-teachers-who"},"modified":"2015-03-16T13:50:25","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T13:50:25","slug":"this-shadowy-group-is-targeting-russian-teachers-who-support-lgbt-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/1306","title":{"rendered":"This Shadowy Group Is Targeting Russian Teachers Who Support LGBT Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe group says it will continue to “raid” schools “where the rights of children and families may be violated.”<\/b>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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View this image ›<\/b><\/a><\/p>\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t

AP Photo\/Dmitry Lovetsky, File<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

In this May 1, 2013, file photo, gay rights activists carry rainbow flags as they march during a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia.<\/small><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

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A shadowy group identifying itself as the “public ombudsman for children’s rights” turned up at a school in St. Petersburg last week in what it called a “raid” to demand the dismissal of a teacher supportive of LGBT rights, local media outlets reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The group said it showed the school director photos from Maksim Ivantsov’s wall on the Russian social network VKontakte as proof of the teacher’s “propaganda” of “LGBT values.”<\/p>\n

Ivantsov has spoken out publicly against anti-LGBT discrimination. In December he became a target of Timur Isaev<\/a>, an anti-LGBT campaigner who claimed to have gotten dozens of LGBT teachers fired before his arrest late last year on unrelated charges.<\/p>\n

Ivantsov suggested the group behind the raid are supporters of Isaev. “I don’t know who they are, I’ll figure it out,” he told the Metro<\/a> news site. “At work now everything is calm. To incoming requests the school leadership answers that they have no complaints about me, everything is in order and I will continue to work.”<\/p>\n

The office of the actual children’s rights ombudsman of St. Petersburg, Svetlana Agapitova, denied any connection to the group and said<\/a> the school had “every right to call the police if this unknown organization is conducting illegal acts.” <\/p>\n

“In the subway station you can buy a certificate that says you’re a tsar and call yourself whatever you like,” a spokesman for Agapitova said<\/a>. “The question is what confirms your authority.”<\/p>\n

On January 15, the week before Agapitova was re-elected, a gathering of “parents’ and patriotic organizations” led by the Russian Orthodox group People’s Cathedral denounced<\/a> her candidacy and proposed creating the new position of “public ombudsman for children’s rights,” to be filled by their preferred candidate, Marina Zhuravlyova. A report that aired on the pro-Kremlin NTV television channel shows several representatives of the “public ombudsman,” including the leader of People’s Cathedral, looking at a potential office space.<\/p>\n

The self-declared “public ombudsman” group said<\/a> that Agapitova “does not deal with the protection of morals, as well as the protection of the traditional family,” according to Metro. It vowed<\/a> to conduct “regular” raids on locations where “the rights of children and families may be violated” and said it would open a website where parents could leave tips on teachers to investigate.<\/p>\n

A recent Human Rights Watch report<\/a> documented seven cases of Russian educators whose jobs were threatened due to their support for LGBT rights.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t<\/div>

Read more: http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/susiearmitage\/a-fake-childrens-ombudsman-is-targeting-russian-teachers-who<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The group says it will continue to “raid” schools “where the rights of children and families may be violated.” View this image › AP Photo\/Dmitry Lovetsky, File In this May 1, 2013, file photo, gay rights activists carry rainbow flags as they march during a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia. A shadowy group … Continue reading This Shadowy Group Is Targeting Russian Teachers Who Support LGBT Rights<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[636,637],"class_list":["post-1306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anxiety","tag-lgbt","tag-st-petersburg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/14264778338528-this-shadowy-group-is-targeting-russian-teachers--2-4200-1423066671-33_dblbig.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}