The journey company supplied excursions aimed solely at males, and that was sufficient to draw the eye of the police implementing new Russian legal guidelines that limit the rights of homosexual folks.
One evening in December, officers stormed the condominium of the company’s proprietor and tied him up, he later instructed a courtroom.
“Fifteen folks got here to my place at evening,” mentioned the proprietor, Andrei Kotov. “They had been beating me within the face, kicking me and leaving bruises.” His feedback had been reported by Russian media and confirmed by his lawyer.
Mr. Kotov mentioned the officers pressured him to “confess” that he was working a journey company geared toward homosexual folks, which he denied. The officers stored beating him, he mentioned, and instructed him: “No journeys for gays.”
A number of weeks later, Mr. Kotov, then 48, was discovered lifeless in his jail cell. Jail officers instructed his mom that he reduce himself with a razor, mentioned his lawyer, Leysan Mannapova. The circumstances of his dying couldn’t be independently decided, and Russian officers didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Mr. Kotov’s dying displays an more and more harsh crackdown in Russia on the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. folks that 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 take care of “Russian conventional values.”
In November 2023, the Russian Supreme Court docket 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 focusing on extremist teams, homosexual rights activists, their legal professionals or others concerned in efforts to assist L.G.B.T.Q. folks may face jail sentences of six to 10 years.
That has led to a wave of repression towards L.G.B.T.Q. folks and teams, with the police raiding homosexual evening golf equipment and investigators focusing on bizarre Russians, in keeping with members of the group and groups like Human Rights Watch.
At the least 12 felony inquiries on the L.G.B.T.Q. extremism fees had been initiated final yr, in keeping with the Russian prisoner rights advocacy group OVD-Data.
Denis Olyenik, government director of Coming Out, which helps L.G.B.T.Q. folks in Russia, mentioned the authorities’ strain had initially targeted on rights teams and activists.
“Now, the crackdown is reaching out to bizarre folks, golf equipment, events — it affected the group that beforehand would even distance itself from rights advocacy,” he mentioned.
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 characterize Russia at worldwide contests.
However in 2013, Mr. Putin opened a salvo towards homosexual folks 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 courtroom ruling that led to the present crackdown.
After Mr. Kotov, the journey agent, was arrested, he was additionally charged with producing photos of kid sexual abuse, however his lawyer was not capable of evaluation case supplies on that cost.
Throughout his arraignment listening to in December, an investigator instructed the courtroom, with out giving additional particulars, that photos on Mr. Kotov’s cellphone proved that he dedicated a criminal offense “aimed towards the constitutional order and safety of the state.”
A number of weeks later, Mr. Kotov was lifeless.
Simply two days earlier, a psychological analysis for Mr. Kotov didn’t present any suicidal tendencies, mentioned Ms. Mannapova, his lawyer.
Mr. Kotov’s mom has requested the prosecutors to go forward together with his case posthumously in order that he could possibly be cleared of the allegations towards him, his lawyer mentioned.
“It was totally unclear to him how arranging journeys for males will be thought of establishing an extremist group,” she mentioned.
The evening after the Supreme Court docket outlawed the L.G.B.T.Q. motion in 2023, Sergei Artyomov, a 36-year-old homosexual man from Moscow, mentioned he and his mates had 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 mentioned.
Nobody was arrested, however Mr. Artyomov, who used to work as a TV producer, mentioned the expertise rattled him. He mentioned that he had already been fascinated with leaving Russia as he needed to stay as an overtly homosexual man, and that the raid strengthened his resolve.
“I knew issues would solely worsen,” he mentioned. “There is no such thing as a grey space anymore. They name you an enemy of the folks, and that’s it.”
He left simply earlier than Christmas for Spain, the place he mentioned 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 jap Siberian metropolis of Yakutia, Pryany Yakutsk, a preferred media channel on Telegram, raised alarm over the vacations about “debauchery and corruption of males occurring beneath the very nostril of regulation enforcement and the officers in Yakutsk.”
It revealed two grainy photographs from a nightclub occasion depicting what gave the impression to be bare-breasted ladies, certainly one of them on a unadorned man. The message on the Telegram channel mentioned the occasion featured what it referred to as “transvestite performers” from Thailand.
A courtroom later fined the membership 250,000 rubles, or about $2,800, for violating public order since its patrons had been “in a state of undress that insults human dignity and promotes nontraditional sexual relations.”
Russian Community, a nationalist group that types itself as social vigilantes, has additionally posted photographs and movies from police raids. Final yr, 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 folks mendacity on the ground, face down, being arrested.
A criminal 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 concerning the virtues of heterosexual households with kids. Earlier this yr, Mr. Putin issued an order for his authorities to provide you with a method to advertise households with a number of kids.
For the reason that Kremlin launched the primary anti-gay invoice in 2013, the variety of Russians who suppose homosexual folks shouldn’t have the identical rights as others has increased from 47 to 62 %, in keeping with the impartial pollster Levada.
Younger Russians are nonetheless way more accepting of L.G.B.T.Q. folks than older ones, opinion polls present, however have additionally heard fixed denunciations of them within the media over the previous yr.
“That torrent of homosexual and trans hatred that retains pouring out from all media goes to have penalties,” mentioned Tatyana Vinnichenko, a veteran L.G.B.T.Q. activist dwelling in exile in Lithuania.
The trans group has been a specific goal of the authorities, with the adoption of a law 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 folks from Russia, activists say.
However Tahir, a 25-year-old homosexual man who requested that his household identify be withheld for worry of felony prosecution, mentioned he had no intention of leaving.
“I positively know that issues will worsen,” he mentioned. “However I don’t wish to go away. This nation is mine as a lot as it’s for others.”
