Russian photographer sentenced to forced labour for writing LGBT K-Pop fanfiction

A Russian woman has been sentenced to hard labour for writing gay fanfiction about a K-Pop boy band. Alexandra Kuzyk, a 36-year-old photographer and stylist, was arrested last year and charged with producing illegal pornography after she was found to have published stories online about fictional sexual relationships involving the South Korean pop group Stray Kids. Ms Kuzyk admitted the offence after prosecutors in the city of Yekaterinburg pushed for a four-year prison sentence, having said that she previously wrote fanfiction as a hobby. Last week, a judge sentenced her to 18 months of compulsory labour, with 10% of her earnings to be withheld by the state. The case was launched nearly a year ago after a woman told police she had found same-sex fanfiction written by Alexandra Kuzyk in 2022 on her underage daughter’s device. Police seized books and electronics from her home in the Beloyarsky District including two laptops, an iPad, two smartphones and 20 CDs. Ms Kuzyk told LGBT group Parni+ that she was publishing or selling any stories when the investigation was launched last year. She said the woman discovered her daughter's Telegram channel in her subscriptions and took screenshots of LGBTQ+-related posts, as well as sexual scenes from the fanfiction on Fikbook before sending the materials to Roskomnadzor - the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. It has also been reported that law enforcement found fanfiction about "non-traditional love" written by Alexandra online. On a fanfiction site, Alexandra wrote about her K-Pop fanfiction investigation: "The first examination began [on] November 23. There were no printed versions of my fics at the time. "I don't want to scare you, but the denunciation was written against an electronic version of a 'mediocre' fanfic. The denunciation was reviewed and an examination was conducted. The fact that I wasn't publishing or selling anything at the time didn't save me." Compulsory labour sentences are increasingly being handed down by Russian courts as part of the Kremlin's clampdown on LGBT rights. Vladimir Putin's ban on the promotion of "nontraditional sexual relationships" to children in 2014 has since been widened to involve any mention of these topics, and in November 2023, the Russian Supreme Court designated the "LGBT movement" as extremist, criminalising active support for the movement. Last year, Mark Kislitsyn, a 28-year-old transgender man and volunteer for a Russian LGBT support initiative, was sentenced to 12 years for "high treason" after donating $10 to a Ukrainian bank. In a landmark case in March, a court in Chita, Eastern Siberia, sentenced 23-year-old nightclub owner Tatiana Zorina to four years in a penal colony for "organising the activities of an extremist organization" simply for running a venue where LGBT events were held. Meanwhile, Diana Kamilyanova, a bar manager, and art director Alexander Klimov currently face up to ten years in prison for allegedly staging and filming drag performances. In March 2026, the government officially added them to its federal list of "terrorists and extremists". And last month, Russian authorities raided the Moscow offices of Eksmo, one of the country's largest book publishers, over "LGBT propaganda" found in the back catalogue of Popcorn Books, a youth-oriented imprint they had acquired. The general director and several employees were taken away for questioning.