Russian riot police. Photo: EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
Police in Moscow raided a number of queer party venues in the early hours of Saturday morning, exactly a year after Russia’s Supreme Court ruled the “International LGBT movement” to be an “extremist organisation”, Telegram news channel Baza has reported.
Riot police forced club patrons at Arma to lie face down on the floor before carrying out searches, holding club-goers for a total of about three hours, Baza said, adding that dozens of people had been detained.
Police also raided Mono, a space that attracts an LGBT crowd, where as well as detaining people, police issued some patrons with military call-up papers and interrogated them about their connection to the LGBT community, according to Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti.
There were also raids on Simach and Inferno, two other Moscow queer spaces, overnight. At Inferno, police seized smartphones, laptops, and video cameras, the Interior Ministry told state-owned news agency TASS, adding that the raids had been carried out to tackle “LGBT propaganda” and “non-traditional sexual relations”, as well as to verify the legal status of each venue.
Russia’s Supreme Court ruled the “international LGBT movement” constituted an “extremist organisation” exactly one year ago. Since then, six criminal cases have been opened against club-owners in various Russian cities according to Parni+, a Russian LGBT website.
