Russians defeated in litigation against Madonna to appeal ruling
ST. PETERSBURG. Nov 22 (Interfax) - Russians who have sued U.S. pop star Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone) for her support of sexual minorities but have had the suit thrown out by a Russian court on Thursday will appeal the ruling, a spokeswoman for the claimants said.
"We are planning to appeal the court ruling at a higher level. This will be done after we get the text of the court ruling," Darya Dedova, who is press secretary of the Trade Union of Citizens of Russia, told Interfax.
"We still maintain that there has been a breach of law. And since there has been a legal offense, those guilty must be punished. Madonna's speech, her appeal in support of the homosexual community suggest that homosexuality is good. We don't want Russia to go the route of Europe and the United States, where same-sex marriages are legalized. We have other values, we consider the traditional family to be normal," Dedova said.
Moreover, the claimants cannot accept the order of the Moskovsky District Court of St. Petersburg to compensate the defendants for the legal expenditure they had sustained in the litigation. "We don't agree to refund the fabulous expenditure for the lawyers. The average prices for legal services in the city are a lot lower," Dedova said.
She also said more than 140 letters from people of St. Petersburg had come to a police station in the Moskovsky district. "As of this moment, we have a ruling on refusal to institute criminal proceedings. But nothing has been said so far about whether any civil proceedings will be instituted," Dedova said.
The Moskovsky Court ordered each of the 10 claimants to pay 22,022.22 rubles to two defendant companies and 16,000.16 rubles to another defendant company.