On 15 May, Moscow’s Zamoskvoretskiy court sent three suspects in a criminal case on extremism through publications of Popcorn Books and Individuum publishing houses to house arrest. This was reported by the human rights project “First Department”.
Dmitry Protopopov, one of the publishers’ managers, Pavel Ivanov, sales director, and Artem Vakhlyaev, responsible for the composition and distribution of literature, were sent under house arrest. The investigation asked to send Protopopov to a pre-trial detention centre.
The case was initiated under the article on organising the activities of an extremist organisation. According to the investigation, the employees of LLC “individualum print” “from selfish motives published and sold books promoting the activities of the LGBT movement”. The international LGBT movement, which does not actually exist, is recognised as an extremist organisation in Russia. Individuum and Popcorn Books, prior to Russia’s banning of so-called “LGBT propaganda”, published literature whose heroes were queer characters. The distribution of these books became the formal basis for a criminal case.
About 10 former and current employees of the publishing houses “Eksmo”, Popcorn Books and Individuum (the last two publishing houses were acquired by “Eksmo” group) were detained and searched on 13 May. Three people were given the status of suspects in the case.
On 15 May “Exmo” asked bookstores to get rid of 48 books in their assortment, writes the portal “guys+”.
“Eksmo” asked, in particular, to “dispose” of the books “Summer in a pioneer tie”, “what Swallow is silent about”, “a gentleman’s manual of vice and virtue” and other works, where LGBT persons are described. These works were published by publishers between 2019 and 2022, First Division specified.