{"id":14913,"date":"2018-10-03T12:09:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T09:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=14913"},"modified":"2023-01-18T12:22:45","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T09:22:45","slug":"the-daily-beast-publicity-about-a-young-gay-man-tortured-in-russian-annexed-crimea-has-focused-attention-on-a-rapidly-dwindling-lgbt-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/publications-about-us\/media-about-us\/the-daily-beast-publicity-about-a-young-gay-man-tortured-in-russian-annexed-crimea-has-focused-attention-on-a-rapidly-dwindling-lgbt-community\/","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Beast: Publicity about a young gay man tortured in Russian-annexed Crimea has focused attention on a rapidly dwindling LGBT community"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Daily Beast: How Russia Drove Crimea\u2019s LGBT Community Underground<\/a><\/p>\n

Shortly:
\nAccording to a 2016 report, Violation of LGBTI Rights in Crimea and Donbass<\/a>, by Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial and Kiev-based Center for Civil Liberties, social attitudes \u201cchanged under the influence of Russian homophobic propaganda\u201d and the community \u201cbecame more secretive\u201d in Crimea. It notes several cases where homophobic locals would lure members of the LGBT community to meet with them, only to humiliate them and beat them up. As homophobic norms were spreading across the peninsula, support services were disappearing. According to the report, Crimea only had one NGO on the ground that worked with the LGBT community and its organizers left when Russia came. Russian LGBT groups, meanwhile, haven\u2019t expanded their operation to Crimea because they don\u2019t recognize its annexation, the report states.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Last month ADC Memorial documented the first case of torture of a gay man on the peninsula, dating back to the fall of 2014.<\/p>\n

In a five-minute video<\/a>, the man, who only identifies himself as Alexander, provides a harrowing account of being taken to his district police station, beaten and raped.<\/p>\n

He said the officers handcuffed him, knocked out his teeth, bruised his ribs and left him with spinal problems. The 34-year-old said he also now suffers from post-traumatic syndrome.<\/p>\n

While at the station, Alexander said he saw a list of names\u2014including his. Some of the others he recognized as members of the LGBT community.<\/p>\n

He said amid the torture, the officers pulled out paperwork, forcing him to sign over ownership of his home. \u201cThey just shove the papers in front of face, beat you and say, \u2018If you don\u2019t sign, we\u2019ll kill you. No one will even look for you.\u2019 I tried to resist but what could I do?\u201d he told The Daily Beast in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Alexander had lived alone then. His parents had died. So had a friend, after being similarly targeted by police a few months earlier. \u201cThey planted drugs on him and put him in jail. They say he committed suicide there. But I don\u2019t believe that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alexander signed the papers and fled to Odessa, where a middleman helped him apply for a Polish visa. From there, he started making his way to the Netherlands, where he applied for asylum.<\/p>\n

But in the Netherlands, Alexander\u2019s application was rejected. In part, he said, because he didn\u2019t have any proof of what had happened. \u201cYou need documents confirming that something happened. But I had nowhere to go. I just fled,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder that system, you go [to the hospital] for battery and the medical staff are obligated to call the police. And who will come then? Those same police officers who beat me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he knows other Ukrainians who have successfully sought asylum in Europe with assistance from LGBT groups in cities like Kiev. \u201cBut Crimea had nothing like that,\u201d he sighed.<\/p>\n

ADC Memorial\u2019s Inessa Sakhno said while LGBT people are not the only group persecuted by authorities on the peninsula, they are an especially easy target. \u201cThis group is less protected because they don\u2019t turn to police or rights groups and don\u2019t organize protests because it\u2019s unacceptable to talk about these things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Daily Beast: How Russia Drove Crimea\u2019s LGBT Community Underground Shortly: According to a 2016 report, Violation of LGBTI Rights in Crimea and Donbass, by Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial and Kiev-based Center for Civil Liberties, social attitudes \u201cchanged under the influence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[636],"tags":[352],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[503],"class_list":["post-14913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-about-us","tag-lgbti-rights-en","regions-crimea"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","pub-thumb":"","post-thumb":"","wcicon":"","wcsquare":"","wcsmall":"","wcstandard":"","wcbig":"","wcfixedheightsmall":"","wcfixedheightmedium":"","wcfixedheight":"","wccarouselsmall":"","wccarousel":"","wcslider":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

The Daily Beast: How Russia Drove Crimea\u2019s LGBT Community Underground Shortly: According to a 2016 report, Violation of LGBTI Rights in Crimea and Donbass, by Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial and Kiev-based Center for Civil Liberties, social attitudes \u201cchanged under the influence of Russian homophobic propaganda\u201d and the community \u201cbecame more secretive\u201d in Crimea. It notes several cases where homophobic locals would lure members of the LGBT community to meet with them, only to humiliate them and beat them up. As homophobic norms were spreading across the peninsula, support services were disappearing. According to the report, Crimea only had one NGO on…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Media about us<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin3","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin3\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14913"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30797,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14913\/revisions\/30797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=14913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}