Hating Gays the Same As Hating Gingers, Says Russkies

Angry over the recent British TV documentary "Hunted" about gangs who beat up gays, Russia has turned the finger on the reporters, saying it's the same as anti-redhead animus in the UK. A recent article in the UK Telegraph reports that Russia's embassy in London called a recent documentary about Russian gangs who beat up gays part of a "well-engineered campaign of slander" timed to coincide with the Winter Olympics.

The film is "hate propaganda... full of distorted facts and unverifiable allegations," said the embassy, insisting that Russia does not condone attacks on gays. They go as far as to compare the film, which graphically depicts Russian gangs "going on safari" entrapping gay men, beating them and publicizing their sexual orientation in a virulently anti-gay nation, as something that could have easily been made about British people's lack of love for redheads. Oddly enough, Yakaterina -- the female ringleader of the St. Petersburg group Occupy Paedophilia profiled in the documentary -- is herself a ginger.

"The documentary's emotional appeal is misleading, since the film falls far short of the standards of professional journalistic investigation," the Telegraph reports the embassy as saying. "One could have easily whipped up such 'documentary' about a hunting season on redheads in the UK saying that 'ginger' people face unmotivated verbal and physical abuse on a daily basis."

"If the authors of the documentary really had evidence of rampant gay hate crimes in Russia, they wouldn't need to wait until an international sporting event takes place in Russia to raise the alarm. While violent attacks on homosexuals sometimes take place in Russia, just like in many other European countries, this does not mean that they are condoned, supported or, let alone, encouraged by the Government. Such attacks are few and far between and by no means reflect general sentiments of the Russian people," reads the embassy statement.

According to a November 2013 UK Telegraph article, some Britons believe that violence against gingers should be made a hate crime. Enda Farrell of Kendal, Cumbria told the Telegraph that he believed the suicide of his 15-year-old daughter Helena Farrell was due to constant teasing by bullies over her ginger hair.