The parliament of Belarus passed a bill on Thursday to introduce punishments for people who promote LGBTQ+ causes, in an echo of restrictions set up in neighbouring ally Russia.
The upper house gave final approval for the legislation following its passage last month by the lower house, and it goes next to President Aliaksandr Lukashenka for his expected signature before becoming law.
The bill makes the "propaganda of homosexual relations, gender charge, refusal to have children and paedophilia" punishable by fines, community labour and 15-day arrest.
Belarus decriminalised homosexuality in 1994 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it doesn’t recognise same-sex marriages and lacks protection for LGBTQ+ rights.
Lukashenka, who has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, has publicly mocked homosexuality.
Belarus has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries, both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
LGBTQ+ groups in Belarus have been shut and security forces have regularly raided nightclubs to target private gay parties.
Rights defenders have said that the country's top security agency, which still goes under its Soviet-era name KGB, has blackmailed members of LGBTQ+ community to force them to cooperate.
"LGBTQ+ people had faced beatings, arrests, persecution and mockery even before the bill's approval, but now law enforcement agencies have received legal grounds for repressions," said Alisa Sarmant, the head of TG House, a Belarusian group championing transgender rights.
The group has documented what it says are at least 12 cases of persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Belarus over the past three months, including a police raid on a nightclub in Minsk last month during a private gay party.
Sarmant said the legislation has raised fears among transgender people that they could be denied permission to legally purchase necessary medicines.
TG House says it already has received hundreds of requests from LGBTQ+ people for psychological assistance and for help moving abroad.
"The Belarusian authorities have lumped together gays, lesbians, transgender people, and paedophiles, creating additional grounds for social rejection and stigmatisation," Sarmant said.
"Belarus is copying Russia’s sad experience, creating unbearable conditions for LGBT+ people."
Russia also has adopted repressive laws curtailing LGBTQ+ rights. Changing one's gender on official documents, gender-affirming care and any public representation of gay or transgender people are banned in Russia.
The LGBTQ+ movement also has been branded as extremist and its members can face up to six years in prison.
