Russian court fines newspaper editor for publishing interview with gay school teacher

MOSCOW – A court in Russia's Far East has fined a newspaper editor for publishing an interview with a gay school teacher who defended homosexuality as normal.

Alexander Suturin, editor of the Molodoi Dalnevostochnik weekly, was ordered to pay a 50,000-ruble ($1,400) fine on charges of violating a controversial law banning gay "propaganda" among minors, according to the Interfax news agency. The law has drawn strong international criticism and calls by gay activists and others for a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics, which run from Feb. 7-23.

The court in Khabarovsk, a city on the Amur River on the border with China, found Suturin guilty because he published an interview with teacher Alexander Yermoshkin, who lost his job because he is gay.

Suturin said he would appeal the ruling.