Russian TV journalist sacked after coming out on-air

A Russian TV journalist, Anton Krasovsky, who recently came out during a live broadcast on KontrTV, an  internet and cable television network, has been sacked by the network the same night he made the announcement.

“I’m gay, and I’m just the same person as you, my dear audience, as President Putin, as Prime Minister Medvedev and the deputies of our Duma,” he said.

Krasovsky has since spoken to CNN, arguing against a proposed boycott of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

“Russian gay people need international support, but international support is not a boycott of Sochi Olympic games, because the Olympic Games is an international event. It’s not a Russian event, it’s not a personal event of Putin, it’s an event of millions and millions of people … seven million people in Russia are gay. If you want to boycott the Olympic Games in Russia, you’re trying to boycott seven million gay people in Russia. You want to boycott me,” Krasovsky said.

A new law in Russia bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” but Russian politicians say it doesn’t outlaw homosexuality or gay sex, which was made legal in 1993, but merely discourages discussion of it among people younger than 18.

No one has yet gone to court under the federal law. Six LGBTI activists were detained after one of them unfurled a banner reading ‘Being gay is normal’ near a children’s library in Moscow, but so far the participants have not been brought to trial.

Four Dutch citizens working on a documentary film about gay rights in the northern Russian town of Murmansk were the first foreigners to be detained under the new law.

They were fined and forced to leave the country, but weren’t put on trial.

At the time of publishing this article, KontrTV has not given any public statement on the decision to sack Krasovsky.