In the early twenties, Mikhail*, a gay man in UFA, Russia, was doing what he liked: drag performances.
“I attended the tour, the competition. I met a new artist and planned that drags would be my grandfather of my life. ”
Mihail said that he lived publicly at this point of view and did not experience much hostility from the everyday public. But in the last few years, the situation has begun to change.
“There was concern in the club industry,” he said. “The restrictions on the number of Ukrainian performers have been limited, and a ban was raised to mention the topics related to LGBT. There was simply eternal anxiety in everyday life. ”
The last straw came when the police aimed at the place where Mikhail worked for the air raid.
“I have been attacked more than once, but the last attack was the roughest and most terrible,” he recalled.
“After that, I followed two interrogations that lasted for 8 to 9 hours, and constantly applied psychological pressure. After that, I had to leave the country to preserve freedom. ”
Russia is not only a war with Ukraine, but it is also related to seeing it as an enemy. As Kremlin tried to support “traditional value”, the persecution of LGBTQ individuals, organizations and communities has been strengthened in the last few years.
The monitoring program coordinator of the Russian LGBTQ organization Sphere, who requested to maintain anonymity, told AL JAZEERA that most abuse for LGBTQ individuals before 2022 was “about everyday and institutional discrimination rather than direct oppression.”
After the revision of the ban on “gay propaganda” in 2022, the ban on the “International LGBT Movement” as the “International LGBT Movement” in 2023 is now in the hands of the authorities.
The USSR was one of the world’s first nations that made homosexuality in 1917, and abolished the Tsurist era law where it was almost unprecedented. However, under Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, homosexuality was considered a threat to the structure of the Soviet society, and in 1934, “Sodo” was punished for three to five years in prison.
Later, it was considered a mental illness, and homosexuals and lesbians were all limited to asylum. Only after the collapse of communism in 1993, the ban was reopened.
The new wave of persecution began in the 2010s to protect children with laws to prevent “gay propaganda.”
President Vladimir Putin’s government described the movement of LGBTQ rights as a foreign agenda to undermine the traditional Russian family value.
“The Russian authorities do not distinguish between the pediatric children’s ‘traditional’ orientation, which is clearly revealed in the statistics published by the Russian Supreme Court in 2023, and the statistics on the three articles of the 6.21 are presented in one line.
In the late 2023, the Russian Supreme Court ruled the “International LGBT Movement” as the “extremist organization.” Of course, there is no such official reality, but this ambiguity creates a very extensive goal.
“Employees of all organizations [helping LGBTQ] Risks to be accused of participating or organizing extremist activities-this means an unfair political motivated criminal prosecution, and as a result, there is a two-digit prison term, ”said Sphere’s monitoring coordinator.
“For this reason, many initiatives have been suspended in this country. Some organizations took employees from Russia to continue working. There are not many queer initiatives in countries that are not in the basement. ”
In November last year, the Moscow police believed that they accepted a series of rods and facilities across the city to queer customers.
According to the data, there were more than 43 people nationwide from November 2023 to January 2025.
“The result is as follows: From the criminal prosecution of the owner for ‘extreme organization organization and participation’, to the same protocol and fine for propaganda. Often air strikes do not officially lead to more persecution, but their facilities quickly change their work forms and actively show or simply close their loyalty to the government’s policy. ”
SPHERE MONITOR added that attendees sometimes deliver a summoning station to a military register. In other words, you can write a draft to fight in Ukraine.
“The published scenes often show that the facility visitors lie naked on a cold floor during the attack and usually last for hours.”
“Violence can be used to use violence to persuade visitors who are hard to deal with the needs of illegal police. For example, in one of the facilities, people had to squat and sit down until a friend gave the police a password. In this case, we are talking about torture. ”
In addition, the law enforcement agency can regularly attack homosexual parties and use a dating app to cover individuals, to be arrested for drugs or “gay propaganda,” or speak positively about homosexuals.
Enforcement aims to queer activities in public areas and privacy.
In December, Andrei Kotov, a male travel agency in Moscow, was arrested on suspicion of organizing “extremist activities,” and later found in his cells in what the authorities later considered suicide.
Independence Russian news site Meduza, which has recently been exiled in Latvia, has recently been exiled. Reported Authorities seem to compile data collected from air raids for gay parties such as fingerprints and DNA samples.
The purpose of this database is unclear, but the Russian police already have such a drug addictive database, which is presumed to have been used to identify capture or planting evidence when a corrupt police officer needs to reach quota.
IRINA, the advocate of Spere’s advocacy, said, “The collected data can be used to start a major crime against extremist charges against the ‘International LGBT film’ without existence, and there are cells in dozens of Russian regions.
“It is also used as an intimidation tool to create an atmosphere of constant fear among queer people. Tools of persecution; We hire LGBT+ people as a ‘voluntary’ information source to provide the database removal in exchange for cooperation. ”
Many people are trying to avoid Russia because of continuous pressure.
Anastasia Burakova, a human rights lawyer and founder of KOVCHEG (Ark), said, “To be a non -traditional family or orientation in Russia, it can be usually dangerous for freedom and life.
“We have temporary emergency accommodations in countries like Serbia and Türkiye, and sometimes we are asked to provide this emergency accommodation for LGBTQ people. Now you can see that there are many requests for those who are persecuted. ”
Nevertheless, the sphere is optimistic about the future.
NOEL SHAIDA said, “Despite all the obstacles that the state puts before us, we believe that the future for LGBT+ community in Russia will be at least, at least, at least, accepted, and discrimination.
“After all, the political system is not eternal, and public officials are not immortal. And even if the future seems to have no hope, we try to demonstrate all the activities that the main ban cannot cancel us. ”
But Mikhail is at least in the short term.
“People can’t express themselves, and they will try to monitor actions to harmonize with the norms that the state instructs,” he said, “he said,” he said.
“I think suicide statistics will increase sadly.”
