Kazakhstan’s parliament on Wednesday passed a bill to ban the promotion of what it calls “non-traditional sexual orientation” in public spaces and the media, a copycat of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws.

Rights groups described the measure, which needs to be approved by the upper house, as discriminatory and said it would increase the vulnerability of LGBTQ people in the Central Asian Muslim-majority country, an ally of Russia.

The legislation would ban “information containing propaganda of paedophilia and/or non-traditional sexual orientation in public spaces, as well as in the media.”

Numerous rights groups urged MPs to reject the law, saying adopting it “would blatantly violate Kazakhstan’s international human rights commitments,” the International Partnership for Human Rights said in a sta

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