Hate crimes against LGBT in Russia: legal status and research problems

Abstract

Hate crime is a prejudice-motivated crime against an unprivileged group. This article provides an overview of hate crimes against LGBT in Russia. Emphasis is placed on several aspects: (1) legal status of hate crimes in Russia, (2) available data sources and statistical analysis of anti-LGBT crimes, (3) number of such crimes and general tendency (4) problems of collection and interpretation of data. To answer these questions, the article employs previous research on the topic, reports of the local and international organizations, and law enforcement practice. Russian courts recognize motive of hate towards LGBT  as a direct “hate motive against a social group” (consisting of two or more people who regularly interact based on mutual expectations and share common identity). However, the judges often avoid the direct application of such norm, replacing the motive of hat3 with the concept of “personal antagonism” or prejudice that affected the motives of the perpetrators. This leads to a misinterpretation of anti-LGBT crime statistics, since “personal antagonism” does not entail legal consequences of hate crimes. Therefore, the absence of the official data on such crimes encourages the researchers to search for the alternative sources of statistical data. For assessing the degree of hate crimes against LGBT in Russia, the author explores various research approaches and reports, which testify to the fact that the number of such crimes has increased since 2013. The author outlines a range of challenges faced by the researchers dealing with this topic, as well as potential vectors for further research.