April 21, 2026, 4:15 p.mApril 21, 2026, 4:15 p.m
According to media reports, the Russian authorities are searching the country’s largest publishing house “Eksmo” on suspicion of spreading “homo propaganda” among young people.
“Eksmo” is the largest publishing house in Russia.image: IMAGO / SNA
The general director of the publishing house, Yevgeny Kapyev, and other managers were arrested, the Russian television station Ren-TV reported. It is also said that security officials confiscated thousands of books that the publisher had distributed unofficially.
The books are allegedly novels that practiced “homo propaganda,” that is, portrayed same-sex love in a life-affirming manner. This has been banned in Russia since a law passed more than ten years ago.
Same-sex love forbidden in the publishing program
Most recently, Moscow tightened the laws again: publishers had to remove titles from their programs and cancel entire editions if the plots also included same-sex love. Activists who support homosexual rights are threatened with persecution as extremists and, in an emergency, imprisonment in a prison camp.
Censorship is also progressing in other areas: It recently became known that several biographies of the well-known Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov (“Master and Margarita”) and the poet, singer and actor Vladimir Vysotsky have to be marked because they allegedly contain advertising for drug use. (hkl/sda/dpa)