When the First Couple of the United States traveled to Moscow to secure the release of an American activist jailed under Russia’s gay propaganda laws, the campaigner upset their plans. He hanged himself in his cell rather than publicly apologize for protesting, though not before he told the First Lady about dozens of incarcerated Russian comrades on hunger strike.

That, at least, was how the scriptwriters of Netflix’s “House of Cards” portrayed the impact of anti-gay legislation in Russia.

The 2012 law, which is ostensibly aimed at protecting children from “gay propaganda”, became a cause célèbre in the US and Europe. Coupled with the jailing of members of the punk band Pussy Riot, it left little space for anything else in the Western media’s coverage of Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile initiated a crackdown on organized political dissent, quietly but effectively suppressing the protest movement that had flared up in December 2011.