Hromadske International: How LGBT People Are Treated in Russia-Occupied Territories

In 2016, Anti-Discrimination Center “Memorial” together with the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties prepared a human rights report on violation of LGBT rights in occupied Crimea and Donbas. The text contains numerous cases of physical attacks, moral violence against LGBT people, as well as people with an “unusual look” which may classify them as members of the LGBT community. There are even cases of targeted hunting for gays.

One respondent, who lives in Crimea, spoke about the case of a fake date, arranged through a social network. “In the apartment, five aggressive homophobes were waiting for him. They undressed him, brought him into the shower, beat him, forced him to lick the toilet, drink vodka, filmed everything on camera. He was a foreigner, he did not know what to do. Then they uploaded the video to the Internet. It hurt him a lot,” the report reads.