ilga europe, the european section of the gay and lesbian and inter sex [speaker not understood] rates russia as the least protective city for lgbt citizens ranking it 49th out of the 49 countries rated in the annual survey. last year in june 2013, the russian duma in moscow passed a new law banning the "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships ~ to mine ores. this new law is closely related to several regional laws that were already on the books all of which seek to penalize "propaganda of homosexuality generally with the intent of "protecting minorses, which as you know has been for many years an argument ~ that homophobes use [speaker not understood]. the language of the new law focuses on nontraditional sexual relationships to contrast with "traditional values or traditional family language." russian russia is promoting aloe ute u.n. positive tim statements of the human rights of lgbt people. the federal lgbt propaganda law as signed by president putin last june took effect in june of last year. in the federal law propaganda is defined as "distribution of information that