Russian security services drag ‘gay night’ party-goers out into snow and beat them



Telegraph reporters
Sun, 18 February 2024 

Security forces raided the Typography cultural centre in Tula, where a party about 'openness and sexuality' was taking place. One of the participants was taken out and kicked in the head

Russian police raided a party they accused of spreading LGBT propaganda and beat its attendees in the snow, as part of a crackdown sweeping the country.

The Typography club in the city of Tula, 100 miles south of Moscow, was holding a night it described as promoting “love, openness and sexuality”.

Though not advertised, overtly at least, as a gay night, authorities interpreted it that way and shut it down.

In a video posted by Russian media, a man wearing a mask and plain clothes kicks and punches a part-goer lying in the snow outside the club.

Another man wearing a military uniform and helmet stands by watching.

In this video posted by Russian media, a man wearing a mask and plain clothes kicks and punches a part-goer lying in the snow outside the club

OVD-Info, a Russian rights organisation, said that the video was filmed on Saturday night.

“The security forces forced the party participants to lie on the floor. Those present were photographed, beaten, and threatened with being forced into the war in Ukraine,” it said.

OVD-Info also said that police then picked out nine of the “most feminine-looking” men from the party to drive to a police station and charge them with spreading LGBT propaganda.

Russia’s opposition media quoted one of the partygoers as saying that he believed he would have been even more badly beaten if he hadn’t known the words to the official Tula region anthem that the security forces forced him to sing.

“They grabbed me by the hair and asked who I was,” said the unnamed party-goer. “‘This is a Hero City! Sing the anthem!’ Thank God, I know the Tula anthem because I grew up here.”

Kremlin has effectively outlawed homosexuality

The Kremlin has effectively outlawed homosexuality, framing gay rights as a feature of decadent Western culture. Police have raided nightclubs and bars in Moscow and St Petersburg because they consider them to be hotbeds of anti-war sentiment.

Videos from these raids have previously shown young hipsters and rock fans being forced to sing the Russian national anthem as uniformed policemen look on and casually tap their truncheons.

Vladimir Putin has made promoting Russia as a bastion of traditional values central to his image. Over Christmas, Russian authorities imposed major fines on TV and internet celebrities who had attended what Putin considered to be an excessively lurid and louche “nearly naked” party at a Moscow nightclub.