A bookstore in Makhachkala was fined for selling books with LGBT propaganda.

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The court fined the Chitai-Gorod store, located in the Etazhi shopping center in Makhachkala, 800,000 rubles for selling three books containing signs of LGBT propaganda.

A court ruling, cited by RIA Novosti, indicates that a customer came to the Chitai-Gorod store in the Etazhi shopping center and purchased the books "Bear's Corner" and "We Against You" by Fredrik Backman, and "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin.

She then handed the books over to officers from the Center for Combating Extremism (CPE) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A report was filed against the New Bookstore M LLC for an administrative offense under Part 1 of Article 6.21 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses (propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations and/or preferences, gender reassignment), the publication reported on March 20.

The court found the LLC guilty and fined it 800,000 rubles. The case also reportedly includes reports from several experts from the Trans-Baikal State University. For example, Doctor of Philosophy Artem Zhukov believes that the aforementioned books contain signs of ideas related to the propaganda of homosexuality; they "challenge traditional Russian notions of family and society, aim to destroy traditional gender roles, traditional family values, and discredit the patriarchal family tradition."

Previously, "Caucasian Knot" wrote that in February, an LGBT* representative from Kazakhstan was detained in Dagestan on a denunciation and, after being held in a detention center for more than 2.5 months, was deported. It was not possible to appeal this decision.

* The LGBT movement has been recognized as an extremist organization.

** Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.