TODAY: St Petersburg’s anti-homosexual law close to passing; Moscow City Hall turning down opposition protest requests for day after elections; Putin says opposition will plant fake evidence of voting fraud; Navalny says he will not recognise this Sunday’s election win for Putin; Pozner and censorship; electronic signature system progressing. 

St Petersburg has all but passed a law (29-5) aimed at eliminating homosexual ‘propaganda’, sparking outrage from gay rights groups all over the world.  The head of Russia’s LGBT network, Igor Kochetkov, said: ‘Even if someone wanted to, no amount of propaganda is going to turn a heterosexual gay […] This is a law that can be used, and will be used, to conduct searches of organizations and prevent public actions.’  RFE/RL interviews Yury Gavrikov, the head of St. Petersburg’s Ravnopravie sexual minorities rights group, here. The bill still needs to be signed by the governor in order to become law. Alexei Kudrin is predicting a political future of increasingly strong leftist parties, which he says could damage the economy.  Another day, another pro-Putin party.  A regional governor insists that anti-Kremlin activities in Lermontov were funded by ‘foreign forces’.  Moscow’s City Hall is turning down opposition requests to hold central rallies on March 5, the day after the presidential vote, offering alternative sites outside the city center.  An attempt by opposition group Rosagit to hand out tents on Pushkin Square to begin a long-term protest was quickly thwarted by police; six activists were arrested and released.