Mélanie Joly summons Russian ambassador to answer for anti-LGBTQ tweets | 24CA News

Canada’s international affairs minister is summoning Russia’s ambassador after the embassy in Ottawa revealed numerous anti-LGBTQ social media posts.

“Unsurprisingly, the Russians have once again chosen hateful propaganda,” Mélanie Joly stated in a media assertion issued by her workplace.

“We absolutely can’t tolerate this rhetoric … This is an attack on the Canadian values of acceptance and tolerance.”

It’s the third time Ambassador Oleg Stepanov has been summoned by Joly this yr.

Last week, Russia handed laws by its decrease home extending its ban on publishing info regarding LGBTQ folks.

In a press release revealed on social media, Russia stated the brand new legislation was enacted to battle “propaganda” that “promotes same-sex sexual relations or preferences, as well as pedophilia.”

Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge, who’s lesbian, criticized the Russian laws on Twitter, calling it “homophobic propaganda” and “an attack on human rights.” The Russian embassy lashed out in response.

It revealed a sequence of tweets accusing the Canadian authorities of meddling in Russian affairs — one in every of which was focused at St-Onge personally. 

The embassy revealed an image of the late Romanov household with the message, “Madame, with all due respect to your opinion, will you, please, explore and explain how you appeared in this world?”

Joly’s workplace stated the ambassador will likely be anticipated to elucidate the tweet directed at St-Onge.

Other current tweets from the Russian embassy included an image of a delight flag with a cross by it, with the caption, “It is all about family. Family is a man and a woman and children.” Another posted a picture of Adam and Eve with the caption, “And yes, there are just two sexes/genders — a man and a woman, male and female.”

A press release dated Nov. 25 revealed by the Russian Embassy’s Twitter account accused Canada of “deliberately distorting the reality by conflating the concepts of individual sexual preferences and universal human rights.”

The assertion says that the rights of sexual minorities are protected in Russia however that “propaganda” in regards to the LGBTQ neighborhood “infringes the rights of traditional majority of the Russian citizens.”

The assertion goes on to cite former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s well-known assertion on homosexual rights — “There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation” — including that particulars of LGBTQ relations ought to “remain strictly personal.”

The embassy has additionally revealed numerous tweets criticizing Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying laws, claiming it quantities to the Nazi regime’s eugenics coverage “reincarnated in neoliberalism.”