Canada will summon Russian ambassador for “hateful” tweets to LGBT+ community

The Russian diplomat has notably attacked the Canadian Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge, openly lesbian.

MO12345LEMONDE With AFP

The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, asked her services on Monday, November 28, to summon the Russian ambassador to Ottawa, Oleg Stepanov, after the publication of a series of anti-LGBT+tweets, including A aiming the Federal Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge, openly lesbian.

Messages published by the Twitter account of the Russian Embassy echo the recent adoption by the Russian Duma of a bill prohibiting any LGBT+”propaganda”, or even to “promote non -traditional sexual relations “With all audiences, in the media, on the Internet, in books and in films.

“The Russians have once again chosen hate propaganda,” said Emily Williams, spokesperson for Mélanie Joly. “This is an attack on Canadian acceptance and tolerance values. Minister Joly asked the Ministry to summon the Russian ambassador to communicate this message to him,” she added. >

Russian tweets included a photo of a rainbow flag barred with a red line and accompanied by comments: “It’s all about family. The family is a man, a woman and children . “

” deeply offended “

The embassy also taken it to the Canadian Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge, openly lesbian, after she denounced “Russian homophobic propaganda”. “We cannot tolerate this rhetoric and even less comments about Minister St-Onge,” said the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In an email addressed to the France-Presse agency, Pascale St-Onge said he was “deeply offended by the message of the Russian ambassador against homosexuals while he is on Canadian soil”, the qualifying “affront to the hard rights acquired by the entire LGBT+ community”.

Russia seeks to portray LGBT+ relations as a product of the dangerous Western influence, in the conservative hardening of the Kremlin accompanying its military offensive in Ukraine.

The tweets of his embassy were also posted after a deadly shootout in a LGBT+ club in Colorado (United States) and after the controversy aroused by the rainbow logo of the Football World Cup in Qatar , where homosexuality is illegal.

/Media reports cited above.