At the beginning of the twenties, Mikhail * (not his real name), a homosexual from the city of UFA in Russia, did what he loved: drag performances.
“I went on tour, to competitions; I met new artists and planned that the trail would be the grandfather of my life, “he told Al Jazeera.
At this stage, said Mikhail, he lived his life openly and had not known a lot of manifest hostility from the daily public. But in recent years, things have started to change.
“Concerns have arisen in the club industry,” he said. “Restrictions have been imposed on the number of Ukrainian artists, a ban has been put by mentioning subjects related to LGBT. In everyday life, there was simply an eternal anxiety. »»
The final straw came when the police targeted the place where Mikhail worked for a raid.
“I was caught in the raids more than once, but my last raid was the most rough and the most terrible,” he recalls.
“Subsequently, two interrogations lasting eight or nine hours each, applying psychological pressure on me constantly. After that, I was forced to leave the country in order to preserve my freedom. »»
Russia is not only the war in Ukraine, but also on what it considers enemies inside. The persecution of LGBTQ individuals, organizations and communities has intensified in recent years while the Kremlin seeks to maintain “traditional values”.
The coordinator of the Russian LGBTQ organization’s monitoring program, who asked to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera that before 2022, the majority of abuses intended for LGBTQ people, “concerned daily and institutional discrimination, rather than direct repression”.
Since the modifications of the ban on “gay propaganda” in 2022, followed by the ban on the transition and the genre designation of the “LGBT International” movement as an extremist organization “in 2023, today at least two thirds of abuses take place in the hands of the authorities.
The former USSR was one of the first countries in the world to decriminalize homosexuality in 1917, repealing the laws of the Tsarist era which themselves were barely applied. But in the 1930s, under Joseph Stalin, homosexuality became a threat to the fabric of Soviet society and in 1934, “sodomy” was punishable by three to five years’ imprisonment.
Later, he became considered a mental illness and gays and lesbians were forcibly confined to asylums. It was not until 1993, after the collapse of communism, the ban was again lifted.
A new wave of persecution began in the 2010s with laws to prevent “gay propaganda”, ostensibly to protect children.
The government of President Vladimir Putin described the LGBTQ rights movement as a foreign order to undermine the traditional family values of Russia.
“The Russian authorities do not distinguish between pedophilia and” non -traditional “orientations, which clearly emerges from the published statistics of the judicial department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation for 2023, where the statistics of the three articles of 6.21 are presented in a single line,” said Noel Shaida, Head of Sphere, explained.
At the end of 2023, the Supreme Court of Russia ruled on the “LGBT International” movement as “extremist organization”. Of course, no formal entity exists, but this vagueness creates a very wide range of targets.
“Employees of any organization [helping LGBTQ] Risk of being accused of having participated or organized extremist activities – which implies unfair criminal proceedings with political motivation, potentially with two -digit prison conditions accordingly, “said the SPPHERE supervision coordinator.
“For this reason, many initiatives have announced the cessation of work in the country. Some organizations have released Russia employees to continue working. There are not many queer initiatives in the country that are not forced to operate underground. »»
In November of last year, the Moscow police went down to a series of bars and establishments through the city which are addressed to a queer clientele.
“According to our data, there were at least 43 across the country from November 2023 to January 2025,” said the representative of the sphere.
“The results vary: criminal prosecution of the owners of the establishment for” organization and participation in an extremist organization “in the same protocols and propaganda fines. Often, raids do not officially lead to new persecution, but the establishments where they take place quickly change their work format and actively demonstrate loyalty to government policies, or simply close. »»
The monitor of the sphere added that the participants sometimes receive a summons to a military registration office, which means that they could be written to fight in Ukraine.
“Published images often show that visitors to establishments are forced to stay naked on cold soil during the raid, which generally lasts several hours,” they continued.
“Violence can be used, among other things, to convince insoluble visitors to comply with illegal police requests: give access to the content of a mobile phone or to answer questions of interest in the police. For example, in one of the establishments, people were forced to squat until their friend gives the police the password on their phone. In this case, we are talking about torture. »»
In addition, law enforcement organizations regularly serve the gay parties and trap individuals using meeting applications, arresting them for accusations such as narcotics or “gay propaganda”, which could mean displaying gay pride symbols or speaking positively about homosexual relationships.
Repression targets queer activity in the public sphere and privacy.
In December, Andrei Kotov, director of the Men Travel Agency in Moscow, was arrested for the organization of “extremist activities” and was then found dead in his cell in what the authorities judged a “suicide”.
The independent Russian information site MEDUZA, now operating in Latvia exile, recently reported That the authorities seem to compile the data collected from the raids on the gay parties – such as fingerprints and DNA samples – as well as the medical records of transgender persons to create a database of LGBTQ individuals.
The purpose of such a database is not clear, but the Russian police already have such a database of drug addicts, which would be used to identify targets for trapping or planting evidence when corrupt officers must reach their quotas.
“The data collected could be used to initiate a major criminal case on the non -existent” LGBT Movement “, which has cells in dozens of Russia regions,” said Irina, sphere advocacy.
“It could also be used as an intimidation tool, creating an atmosphere of constant fear in queer people; A tool for persecution; And the recruitment of LGBT + people as “voluntary” informators, offering them the deletion of the database in exchange for cooperation. »»
Due to the current pressure, many try to flee Russia.
“To be a family or a non -traditional orientation in Russia, it can be dangerous for freedom and life in general,” said Anastasia Burakova, human rights lawyer and founder of Kovcheg (ARK), an organization that helps Russian emigrants.
“We have temporary emergency dwellings in countries like Serbia, Turkey, and sometimes we are invited to provide this emergency accommodation to LGBTQ people. For the moment, we see that there are many requests for these people who are under persecution. »»
However, Sphere is optimistic about the future.
“Despite all the obstacles that the State puts before us, we sincerely believe that there is a future for the LGBT + community in Russia, at least and at the maximum, there will be acceptance, no discrimination, etc.”, said Noel Shaida.
“After all, political regimes are not eternal, those responsible are not immortal. And even if it seems that the future is hopeless, we believe and try to demonstrate with all our activities that no state ban can cancel us. »»
But Mikhail is darker, at least in the short term.
“People will not be able to express themselves, they will try to monitor their behavior to blend with the standards that the state dictates now,” he said.
“As sad as it can be, I think suicide statistics will increase.”
