Russian court fines newspaper editor for publishing interview with gay school teacher
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Suturin said he would appeal the ruling.