The journey company supplied 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 evening in December, officers stormed the house of the company’s proprietor and tied him up, he later informed a court docket.
“Fifteen individuals got here to my place at evening,” stated 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 stated the officers pressured him to “confess” that he was operating a journey company geared toward homosexual individuals, which he denied. The officers stored beating him, he stated, and informed him: “No journeys for gays.”
Just a few weeks later, Mr. Kotov, then 48, was discovered lifeless in his jail cell. Jail officers informed his mom that he reduce himself with a razor, stated his lawyer, Leysan Mannapova. The circumstances of his demise couldn’t be independently decided, and Russian officers didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Mr. Kotov’s demise displays an more and more harsh crackdown in Russia on the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. those that has accelerated for the reason that begin of the battle in Ukraine. President Vladimir V. Putin has portrayed the brand new restrictions — and the battle — 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 attorneys or others concerned in efforts to help L.G.B.T.Q. individuals might face jail sentences of six to 10 years.
That has led to a wave of repression in opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. individuals and teams, with the police raiding homosexual evening golf equipment and investigators concentrating on strange Russians, in line with members of the neighborhood and teams like Human Rights Watch.
At the very least 12 prison inquiries on the L.G.B.T.Q. extremism costs had been initiated final yr, in line with the Russian prisoner rights advocacy group OVD-Information.
Denis Olyenik, govt director of Coming Out, which helps L.G.B.T.Q. individuals in Russia, stated the authorities’ strain had initially centered on rights teams and activists.
“Now, the crackdown is reaching out to strange individuals, golf equipment, events — it affected the neighborhood 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 brazenly 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 in opposition to 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 pictures of kid sexual abuse, however his lawyer was not in a position to evaluate case supplies on that cost.
Throughout his arraignment listening to in December, an investigator informed the court docket, with out giving additional particulars, that pictures on Mr. Kotov’s cellphone proved that he dedicated against the law “aimed in opposition to the constitutional order and safety of the state.”
Just a few weeks later, Mr. Kotov was lifeless.
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 together with his case posthumously in order that he might be cleared of the allegations in opposition to him, his lawyer stated.
“It was completely unclear to him how arranging journeys for males might be thought of organising an extremist group,” she stated.
The evening 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 buddies had been focused in a police raid at a Moscow nightclub. The officers blocked off the exits, made patrons stand in opposition to 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 needed to dwell as an brazenly 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 below the very nostril of legislation enforcement and the officers in Yakutsk.”
It printed two grainy photographs 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 had been “in a state of undress that insults human dignity and promotes nontraditional sexual relations.”
Russian Neighborhood, a nationalist group that kinds 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 individuals mendacity on the ground, face down, being arrested.
A prison case was later introduced in opposition to 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.
Because the 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 p.c, in line with the impartial 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 yr.
“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 neighborhood has been a selected goal of the authorities, with the adoption of a legislation in 2023 banning trans well being care and altering gender identifiers in official paperwork.
The most recent 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 undoubtedly 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.”
