A Russian adult content provider who says he was forced to entrap gay men online by police in the republic of Dagestan has been placed in pretrial detention, LGBTQ+ crisis group North Caucasus SOS, said on Tuesday.
Matvey Volodin, who performs under the name USSRboy, has been charged with producing and distributing pornography.
Volodin was first detained in Dagestan at the end of May and imprisoned for 10 days on a civil charge of petty hooliganism. He was then immediately detained again by plain clothes police officers as he left the detention centre on 5 June.
According to his lawyer, Volodin went to Dagestan in late May at the invitation of men who had contacted him online and told him they had rented him an apartment there. They subsequently turned out to be anti-extremism officers, who, after allegedly beating Volodin and confiscating his phone, forced him to assist them with entrapping gay men online.
Using Volodin’s account to invite people to the apartment, the officers allegedly filmed his sexual encounters with more than five men, according to North Caucasus SOS.
Website Parni+, which provides sexual health information to LGBT+ people in Russia, wrote on Tuesday that Volodin was HIV+ and did not have access to his medication in pretrial detention.
In November the Russian Supreme Court declared the “international LGBT social movement” an “extremist organisation”, which led to arbitrary arrests throughout the country. The North Caucasus is known to be one of the most homophobic regions in Russia.
