The journey company provided excursions aimed solely at males, and that was sufficient to draw the eye of the police imposing new Russian legal guidelines that prohibit the rights of homosexual individuals.
One night time in December, officers stormed the condominium of the company’s proprietor and tied him up, he later instructed a court docket.
“Fifteen individuals got here to my place at night time,” stated the proprietor, Andrei Kotov. “They have been beating me within the face, kicking me and leaving bruises.” His feedback have been reported by Russian media and confirmed by his lawyer.
Mr. Kotov stated the officers pressured him to “confess” that he was working a journey company geared toward homosexual individuals, which he denied. The officers stored beating him, he stated, and instructed him: “No journeys for gays.”
A couple of weeks later, Mr. Kotov, then 48, was discovered useless in his jail cell. Jail officers instructed his mom that he reduce himself with a razor, stated his lawyer, Leysan Mannapova. The circumstances of his loss of life couldn’t be independently decided, and Russian officers didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Mr. Kotov’s loss of life displays an more and more harsh crackdown in Russia on the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people who has accelerated because the begin of the conflict in Ukraine. President Vladimir V. Putin has portrayed the brand new restrictions — and the conflict — as a part of a broader battle to keep up “Russian conventional values.”
In November 2023, the Russian Supreme Courtroom designated the “worldwide L.G.B.T.Q. motion” as an “extremist group” on par with the likes of Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. Underneath legal guidelines concentrating on extremist teams, homosexual rights activists, their legal professionals or others concerned in efforts to assist L.G.B.T.Q. individuals might face jail sentences of six to 10 years.
That has led to a wave of repression towards L.G.B.T.Q. individuals and teams, with the police raiding homosexual night time golf equipment and investigators concentrating on peculiar Russians, in response to members of the group and teams like Human Rights Watch.
A minimum of 12 prison inquiries on the L.G.B.T.Q. extremism costs have been initiated final 12 months, in response to the Russian prisoner rights advocacy group OVD-Information.
Denis Olyenik, government director of Coming Out, which helps L.G.B.T.Q. individuals in Russia, stated the authorities’ stress had initially centered on rights teams and activists.
“Now, the crackdown is reaching out to peculiar individuals, golf equipment, events — it affected the group that beforehand would even distance itself from rights advocacy,” he stated.
Homosexuality was decriminalized Russia in 1993, inspiring a vibrant homosexual scene that included celebrities overtly speaking about their sexuality and the institution of homosexual golf equipment. Tatu, a pop group whose two feminine members pretended to be a lesbian couple, kissing between songs, was even picked by state-owned tv to symbolize Russia at worldwide contests.
However in 2013, Mr. Putin opened a salvo towards homosexual individuals when he signed a invoice outlawing the dissemination of what it described as “homosexual propaganda” — which incorporates materials that makes “nontraditional relations engaging” — to minors. In 2022, Russia launched fines for selling “homosexual propaganda.”
Then got here the 2023 court docket ruling that led to the present crackdown.
After Mr. Kotov, the journey agent, was arrested, he was additionally charged with producing photographs of kid sexual abuse, however his lawyer was not in a position to assessment case supplies on that cost.
Throughout his arraignment listening to in December, an investigator instructed the court docket, with out giving additional particulars, that photographs on Mr. Kotov’s telephone proved that he dedicated a criminal offense “aimed towards the constitutional order and safety of the state.”
A couple of weeks later, Mr. Kotov was useless.
Simply two days earlier, a psychological analysis for Mr. Kotov didn’t present any suicidal tendencies, stated Ms. Mannapova, his lawyer.
Mr. Kotov’s mom has requested the prosecutors to go forward along with his case posthumously in order that he might be cleared of the allegations towards him, his lawyer stated.
“It was completely unclear to him how arranging journeys for males could be thought-about organising an extremist group,” she stated.
The night time after the Supreme Courtroom outlawed the L.G.B.T.Q. motion in 2023, Sergei Artyomov, a 36-year-old homosexual man from Moscow, stated he and his pals have been focused in a police raid at a Moscow nightclub. The officers blocked off the exits, made patrons stand towards a wall after which wrote down their ID particulars, he stated.
Nobody was arrested, however Mr. Artyomov, who used to work as a TV producer, stated the expertise rattled him. He stated that he had already been occupied with leaving Russia as he wished to reside as an overtly homosexual man, and that the raid strengthened his resolve.
“I knew issues would solely worsen,” he stated. “There isn’t any grey space anymore. They name you an enemy of the individuals, and that’s it.”
He left simply earlier than Christmas for Spain, the place he stated he was granted asylum.
The Kremlin-driven anti-gay marketing campaign has been whipped up by vigilante teams in addition to native officers and state media.
Within the distant japanese Siberian metropolis of Yakutia, Pryany Yakutsk, a preferred media channel on Telegram, raised alarm over the vacations about “debauchery and corruption of males taking place beneath the very nostril of regulation enforcement and the officers in Yakutsk.”
It revealed two grainy pictures from a nightclub occasion depicting what seemed to be bare-breasted girls, one among them on a unadorned man. The message on the Telegram channel stated the occasion featured what it referred to as “transvestite performers” from Thailand.
A court docket later fined the membership 250,000 rubles, or about $2,800, for violating public order since its patrons have been “in a state of undress that insults human dignity and promotes nontraditional sexual relations.”
Russian Neighborhood, a nationalist group that types itself as social vigilantes, has additionally posted pictures and movies from police raids. Final 12 months, the group posted video of a raid on an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub within the metropolis of Orenburg that confirmed a number of younger individuals mendacity on the ground, face down, being arrested.
A prison case was later introduced towards the membership’s proprietor, supervisor and artwork director, who’re nonetheless awaiting trial.
State media has additionally been bombarding Russians with messaging in regards to the virtues of heterosexual households with youngsters. Earlier this 12 months, Mr. Putin issued an order for his authorities to provide you with a method to advertise households with a number of youngsters.
For the reason that Kremlin launched the primary anti-gay invoice in 2013, the variety of Russians who suppose homosexual individuals mustn’t have the identical rights as others has elevated from 47 to 62 %, in response to the unbiased pollster Levada.
Younger Russians are nonetheless much more accepting of L.G.B.T.Q. individuals than older ones, opinion polls present, however have additionally heard fixed denunciations of them within the media over the previous 12 months.
“That torrent of homosexual and trans hatred that retains pouring out from all media goes to have penalties,” stated Tatyana Vinnichenko, a veteran L.G.B.T.Q. activist dwelling in exile in Lithuania.
The trans group has been a selected goal of the authorities, with the adoption of a regulation in 2023 banning trans well being care and altering gender identifiers in official paperwork.
The newest spherical of repressions has spurred a silent exodus of homosexual and trans individuals from Russia, activists say.
However Tahir, a 25-year-old homosexual man who requested that his household identify be withheld for concern of prison prosecution, stated he had no intention of leaving.
“I positively know that issues will worsen,” he stated. “However I don’t need to depart. This nation is mine as a lot as it’s for others.”
