22:09, 26 December 2018

LGBT activist demands to punish law enforcers for disrupting pickets in Volgograd

Cossacks took posters away from the picketers. Volgograd, December 17, 2018. Screenshot of the video by the user Galetki https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4660hPEUEU

The actions of law enforcers during the pickets in defence of the LGBT movement in Volgograd should be assessed by investigators, the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), said Alexei Nazarov, an activist.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 17, the first in the last five years action of LGBT activists in Volgograd was disrupted. In the presence of policemen, Cossacks took posters away from the picketers, tore them up and threw them away.

On December 17, Alexei Nazarov posted a report about the LGBT action on the YouTube channel "Galetki". In the video, activists express their dissatisfaction with the fact that a policeman expressed his opinion about the action. One of the Cossacks tore up the activist's poster, explaining that he was destroying "the propaganda of homosexuality, which is prohibited by the law."

Mr Nazarov has noted that solo pickets held by activists need no permits or sanctions.

"However, policemen ... expressed open xenophobia and homophobia, and showed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," the activist has stated.

Alexei Nazarov has explained that he was present at the action as a correspondent for the newspaper of human rights organizations "For Human Rights"; however, he was attacked by a law enforcer, who tried to knock the video camera out of his hands.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 26, 2018 at 07:38 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Tatyana Filimonova

Source: CK correspondent