\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
One night in December, officers stormed the apartment of the agency\u2019s owner and tied him up, he later told a court.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen people came to my place at night,\u201d said the owner, Andrei Kotov. \u201cThey were beating me in the face, kicking me and leaving bruises.\u201d His comments were reported by Russian media and confirmed by his lawyer.<\/p>\n
Mr. Kotov said the officers pressured him to \u201cconfess\u201d that he was running a travel agency aimed at gay people, which he denied. The officers kept beating him, he said, and told him: \u201cNo trips for gays.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mr. Kotov\u2019s 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 \u2014 and the war \u2014 as part of a broader battle to maintain \u201cRussian traditional values.\u201d<\/p>\n
In November 2023, the Russian Supreme Court designated<\/a> the \u201cinternational L.G.B.T.Q. movement\u201d as an \u201cextremist organization\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> like Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Denis Olyenik, executive director of Coming Out, which helps L.G.B.T.Q. people in Russia, said the authorities\u2019 pressure had initially focused on rights groups and activists.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, the crackdown is reaching out to ordinary people, clubs, parties \u2014 it affected the community that previously would even distance itself from rights advocacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n 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>, 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.<\/p>\n But in 2013, Mr. Putin opened a salvo against gay people when he signed a bill outlawing the dissemination of what it described as \u201cgay propaganda\u201d \u2014 which includes material that makes \u201cnontraditional relations attractive\u201d \u2014 to minors. In 2022, Russia introduced fines for promoting \u201cgay propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n Then came the 2023 court ruling that led to the current crackdown.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During his arraignment hearing in December, an investigator told the court, without giving further details, that images on Mr. Kotov\u2019s phone proved that he committed a crime \u201caimed against the constitutional order and security of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n A few weeks later, Mr. Kotov was dead.<\/p>\n Just two days earlier, a psychological evaluation for Mr. Kotov did not show any suicidal tendencies, said Ms. Mannapova, his lawyer.<\/p>\n Mr. Kotov\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was utterly unclear to him how arranging trips for men can be considered setting up an extremist group,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew things would only get worse,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no gray area anymore. They call you an enemy of the people, and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n He left just before Christmas for Spain, where he said he was granted asylum.<\/p>\n The Kremlin-driven anti-gay campaign has been whipped up by vigilante groups as well as local officials and state media.<\/p>\n In the remote eastern Siberian city of Yakutia, Pryany Yakutsk, a popular media channel on Telegram, raised alarm over the holidays about \u201cdebauchery and corruption of men happening under the very nose of law enforcement and the officials in Yakutsk.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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 \u201ctransvestite performers\u201d from Thailand.<\/p>\n A court later fined the club 250,000 rubles, or about $2,800, for violating public order since its patrons were \u201cin a state of undress that insults human dignity and promotes nontraditional sexual relations.\u201d<\/p>\n Russian Community<\/a>, a nationalist group that styles itself as social vigilantes, has also posted photos and videos from police raids. Last year, the group posted<\/a> video of a raid<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n A criminal case<\/a> was later brought against the club\u2019s owner, manager and art director, who are still awaiting trial.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> for his government to come up with a strategy to promote families with multiple children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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<\/a> from 47 to 62 percent, according to the independent pollster Levada.<\/p>\n Young Russians are still far more accepting of L.G.B.T.Q. people than older ones, opinion<\/a> polls show, but have also heard constant denunciations of them in the media over the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat torrent of gay and trans hatred that keeps pouring out from all media is going to have consequences,\u201d said Tatyana Vinnichenko, a veteran L.G.B.T.Q. activist living in exile in Lithuania.<\/p>\n The trans community has been a particular target of the authorities, with the adoption of a law<\/a> in 2023 banning trans health care and changing gender identifiers in official documents.<\/p>\n The latest round of repressions has spurred a silent exodus of gay and trans people from Russia, activists say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely know that things will get worse,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to leave. This country is mine as much as it is for others.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n