A Prison Death Highlights an L.G.B.T.Q. Crackdown in Russia

New York Times

01-04-2025

The travel agency offered tours aimed solely at men, and that was enough to attract the attention of the police enforcing new Russian laws that restrict the rights of gay people.
One night in December, officers stormed the apartment of the agency's owner and tied him up, he later told a court.
'Fifteen people came to my place at night,' said the owner, Andrei Kotov. 'They were beating me in the face, kicking me and leaving bruises.' His comments were reported by Russian media and confirmed by his lawyer.
Mr. Kotov said the officers pressured him to 'confess' that he was running a travel agency aimed at gay people, which he denied. The officers kept beating him, he said, and told him: 'No trips for gays.'
A few weeks later, Mr. Kotov, then 48, was found dead in his prison cell. Prison officials told his mother that he cut himself with a razor, said his lawyer, Leysan Mannapova. The circumstances of his death could not be independently determined, and Russian officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Kotov's death reflects an increasingly harsh crackdown in Russia on the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people that has accelerated since the start of the war in Ukraine. President Vladimir V. Putin has portrayed the new restrictions — and the war — as part of a broader battle to maintain 'Russian traditional values.'
In November 2023, the Russian Supreme Court designated the 'international L.G.B.T.Q. movement' as an 'extremist organization' on par with the likes of Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. Under laws targeting extremist groups, gay rights activists, their lawyers or others involved in efforts to support L.G.B.T.Q. people could face jail sentences of six to 10 years.
That has led to a wave of repression against L.G.B.T.Q. people and groups, with the police raiding gay night clubs and investigators targeting ordinary Russians, according to members of the community and groups like Human Rights Watch.
At least 12 criminal inquiries on the L.G.B.T.Q. extremism charges were initiated last year, according to the Russian prisoner rights advocacy group OVD-Info.
Denis Olyenik, executive director of Coming Out, which helps L.G.B.T.Q. people in Russia, said the authorities' pressure had initially focused on rights groups and activists.
'Now, the crackdown is reaching out to ordinary people, clubs, parties — it affected the community that previously would even distance itself from rights advocacy,' he said.
Homosexuality was decriminalized Russia in 1993, inspiring a vibrant gay scene that included celebrities openly talking about their sexuality and the establishment of gay clubs. Tatu, a pop group whose two female members pretended to be a lesbian couple, kissing between songs, was even picked by state-owned television to represent Russia at international contests.
But in 2013, Mr. Putin opened a salvo against gay people when he signed a bill outlawing the dissemination of what it described as 'gay propaganda' — which includes material that makes 'nontraditional relations attractive' — to minors. In 2022, Russia introduced fines for promoting 'gay propaganda.'
Then came the 2023 court ruling that led to the current crackdown.
After Mr. Kotov, the travel agent, was arrested, he was also charged with producing images of child sexual abuse, but his lawyer was not able to review case materials on that charge.
During his arraignment hearing in December, an investigator told the court, without giving further details, that images on Mr. Kotov's phone proved that he committed a crime 'aimed against the constitutional order and security of the state.'
A few weeks later, Mr. Kotov was dead.
Just two days earlier, a psychological evaluation for Mr. Kotov did not show any suicidal tendencies, said Ms. Mannapova, his lawyer.
Mr. Kotov's mother has asked the prosecutors to go ahead with his case posthumously so that he could be cleared of the allegations against him, his lawyer said.
'It was utterly unclear to him how arranging trips for men can be considered setting up an extremist group,' she said.
The night after the Supreme Court outlawed the L.G.B.T.Q. movement in 2023, Sergei Artyomov, a 36-year-old gay man from Moscow, said he and his friends were targeted in a police raid at a Moscow nightclub. The officers blocked off the exits, made patrons stand against a wall and then wrote down their ID details, he said.
No one was arrested, but Mr. Artyomov, who used to work as a TV producer, said the experience rattled him. He said that he had already been thinking about leaving Russia as he wanted to live as an openly gay man, and that the raid strengthened his resolve.
'I knew things would only get worse,' he said. 'There is no gray area anymore. They call you an enemy of the people, and that's it.'
He left just before Christmas for Spain, where he said he was granted asylum.
The Kremlin-driven anti-gay campaign has been whipped up by vigilante groups as well as local officials and state media.
In the remote eastern Siberian city of Yakutia, Pryany Yakutsk, a popular media channel on Telegram, raised alarm over the holidays about 'debauchery and corruption of men happening under the very nose of law enforcement and the officials in Yakutsk.'
It published two grainy photos from a nightclub party depicting what appeared to be bare-breasted women, one of them on a naked man. The message on the Telegram channel said the party featured what it called 'transvestite performers' from Thailand.
A court later fined the club 250,000 rubles, or about $2,800, for violating public order since its patrons were 'in a state of undress that insults human dignity and promotes nontraditional sexual relations.'
Russian Community, a nationalist group that styles itself as social vigilantes, has also posted photos and videos from police raids. Last year, the group posted video of a raid on an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in the city of Orenburg that showed several young people lying on the floor, face down, being arrested.
A criminal case was later brought against the club's owner, manager and art director, who are still awaiting trial.
State media has also been bombarding Russians with messaging about the virtues of heterosexual families with children. Earlier this year, Mr. Putin issued an order for his government to come up with a strategy to promote families with multiple children.
Since the Kremlin introduced the first anti-gay bill in 2013, the number of Russians who think gay people should not have the same rights as others has increased from 47 to 62 percent, according to the independent pollster Levada.
Young Russians are still far more accepting of L.G.B.T.Q. people than older ones, opinion polls show, but have also heard constant denunciations of them in the media over the past year.
'That torrent of gay and trans hatred that keeps pouring out from all media is going to have consequences,' said Tatyana Vinnichenko, a veteran L.G.B.T.Q. activist living in exile in Lithuania.
The trans community has been a particular target of the authorities, with the adoption of a law in 2023 banning trans health care and changing gender identifiers in official documents.
The latest round of repressions has spurred a silent exodus of gay and trans people from Russia, activists say.
But Tahir, a 25-year-old gay man who asked that his family name be withheld for fear of criminal prosecution, said he had no intention of leaving.
'I definitely know that things will get worse,' he said. 'But I don't want to leave. This country is mine as much as it is for others.'