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Aug 16, 2013

Russian TV host fired

Russian TV host fired
Russian TV host fired, Months after being fired for declaring his homosexuality on a live broadcast, former Russian television host Anton Krasovsky is cautioning against an Olympic boycott.

"Russian gay people need international support, but international support is not a boycott of Sochi Olympic games, because Olympic games is an international event," Krasovsky told CNN. "It's not a Russian event, it's not a personal event of Putin, it's an event of millions and millions of people ... 7 million people in Russia are gay. If you want to boycott Olympic games in Russia, you're trying to boycott 7 million gay people in Russia. You want to boycott me."

Calls to boycott the 2014 games have erupted after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on July 29 that makes it a crime to publicly discuss nontraditional relationships in the presence of minors. Both citizens and visitors to the country who are found in violation law now face possible jail time.

Krasovsky was fired in January from KontrTV after he decided he could no longer hold his tongue on Russia’s anti-gay climate.

"I’m gay, and I’m just the same person as you, my dear audience, as President Putin, as Prime Minister Medvedev and the deputies of our Duma," the former anchor told the television audience on his final broadcast.

Last week, President Barack Obama told reporters that he did not think that a U.S. boycott of the games would be fair to the athletes who have trained for years to participate in them.
"One of the things I'm really looking forward to is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which I think would go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes that we're seeing there," Obama said. "And if Russia doesn't have gay or lesbian athletes, then that would probably make their team weaker."