Human rights Russia launches raids on gay venues hours after banning the LGBTi movement

Hours after the international LGBTI movement was banned in Russia, police have carried out several raids on gay clubs in Moscow. During the night from Friday to Saturday, according to local media, agents went to at least four locations. One of them is the Mono bar on Pokrovsky Boulevard, perhaps the most famous gay nightclub in the city. They also went to the Secret club, near the central Kurskaya metro station, and to the Hunters Party, not far from the Kremlin, where, according to the Telegram channel Ostorozhno Moskva, there were several detainees, although the Russian Interior Ministry did not comment. about. At all sites, the police carried out raids under the pretext of searching for drugs. The common pattern is that they are all primarily gay clientele.

The Supreme Court of Russia banned the LGTBi movement last Thursday, which it considers “extremist”, a ruling that has unleashed a wave of indignation among sexual minorities and also in areas that have remained silent after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Presenter Ksenia Sobchak posted a photo of herself with a badge with the gay flag: “This is the most repressive and cruel law in recent years,” she said on Instagram, a social network banned in Russia since repression escalated in 2022. Several Public figures made similar gestures before and after Sobchak.

Russia prohibits both “homosexual propaganda and advertising” and “generating interest and encouraging joining the ranks” of this group. But by classifying the “international LGTBi movement” as “extremist” – which officially does not exist in Russia – the change already lies in the fact that fines are no longer at stake, but rather imprisonment. The charge of “extremism” has already been used against Navalny Foundation activists, resulting in multiple arrest warrants.

SAUNA RAIDS

The agents arrived at the premises and asked those present for their identity documents. According to the Telegram channel Ostorozhno Moskva, the police photographed the documents and then let the people who were in the clubs go after breaking into several saunas claiming to be looking for drugs.

“Everything is carried out under the excuse of a regular raid against drug trafficking. No irregularities were detected, but they spoiled the party,” says the channel, which denounces that in the sauna the agents behaved in a manner disrespectful, they burst in, stopping the music and forcing people to lie face down on the floor. There were also foreign citizens at the party.

“This is a hackneyed scheme, that’s how they closed similar clubs in Saint Petersburg,” commented a witness quoted by the Sota channel. People fear being identified, they stop coming, the site closes and thus saves the Government the trouble of closing it.

In a gay club in Moscow, the owner warned customers of the imminent visit of the security forces. “In 20 minutes the dance floor began to empty,” witnesses told local media. Representatives of the venue reported that a singer refused to perform there after what happened.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears determined to turn his country into a moral reserve against what he sees as Western relativism. Although he recently assured that homosexuals “are also part of society,” he criticized the obsession with the equality of sexual minorities. Recently, Putin mocked these minorities by calling transgenders transformers and asserted that the West should not impose on Russia “its new trends, quite strange, in my opinion, such as the existence of dozens of genders and homosexual parades.”

Many homosexual activists and jurists have reacted these days by recalling that, according to the Constitution, Russia is a secular State. They accuse the Kremlin of wanting to “control” the consciences of Russians.

AGAINST THE PRIVATE SPHERE

Until now, the repression against gays was mainly in its political dimension. But the tightening of the focus is already beginning to be noticed even in areas that were overlooked, such as nightlife. Moscow is not an isolated case. The St. Petersburg Central Station nightclub announced that it would close because the venue’s owners refused to renew the lease contract with the club. A court in Saint Petersburg fined a television channel for showing a video of singer Sergei Lazarev because in it they found “LGBTI propaganda” when two women appeared “interacting” with their hands.

Several human rights organizations have already reported a sharp increase in the number of requests from members of the LGBTi community wishing to leave the country.

The agenda of the Russian authorities is clearly oriented to the more traditional concept of the family and government departments compete in initiatives. Justice represses, education instructs and healthcare will promote birth rates with new formulas. Next year, mandatory medical examination will be introduced at your workplace, and the program will include a study of the reproductive function of women and men. Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova recalled that President Putin declared 2024 as the year of the family and noted that healthcare must take care of “every family and every member of this family.” But in the meantime, some couples fear ending up in jail if they claim to be a family.