Moscow police detained over 50 people in raid on LGBTQ+ venues

Police in Moscow raided two gay clubs last weekend, detaining over 50 people, in what Novaya Gazeta Europe described as the continued escalation of the Russian government’s crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community.

Photos and video from the raids was posted on pro-Russia Telegram channels MSK1 and SHOT on October 12 showing masked police storming into downtown Moscow club Central Station, forcing shouting at patrons and forcing them to lie on the ground. One clip shows officers searching people, with one cop violently kicking a detainee’s leg.

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Russian bar employees arrested for promoting LGBTQ+ “extremism”

Drag performers were stripped as their outfits were confiscated by authorities.

Novaya Gazeta Europe reports that the club was holding a Friday, October 11, event marking National Coming Out Day. Police stormed the venue at around 1 a.m. on Saturday morning under the pretext of fighting “drug trafficking.” A photo on MSK1 and a video on SHOT show one clubgoer who appears to have been forced to empty their bag, the contents laid out on the floor.

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According to Novaya Gazeta, about 200 people were at Central Station at the time of the raid. It’s unclear where the more than 50 people taken into custody were being detained.

Police also raided another popular central Moscow LGBTQ+ venue, Three Monkeys, which is reportedly managed by the same owners as Central Station.

The raids follow what one post on SHOT reportedly described as “civilian complaints.” An October 7 post on the channel included photos and video of drag performers at Three Monkeys, with Moscow locals reportedly complaining of “all sorts of naughty things” and “Half-naked men dressed as women dance around the stage, and the guy guests [kissing] each other freely.”

The same day, another pro-Russia Telegram channel posted video of drag shows at Central Station in which performers allegedly mocked the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The channel wrote that the venue, along with Three Monkeys, should be shut down for “discrediting the Russian army,” according to Novaya Gazeta.

As the outlet noted, last weekend’s raids are just the latest in Russia’s continued crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community. Since the country’s Supreme Court declared the “international LGBT social movement” an “extremist organization” last November, there have been multiple raids on LGBTQ+ bars and other establishments in cities across Russia, and multiple people have been arrested and charged under the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Following a similar raid on a nightclub in the city of Orenburg in March, the venue’s art director and administrator were both charged with being members of an “extremist organization.” The case was reportedly the first of its kind since the Russian Supreme Court’s ruling.  

According to Novaya Gazeta, this is not the first time Central Station has been targeted. The venue was briefly forced to close in 2014 following violent attacks in the wake of Russia’s 2013 law banning so-called “gay propaganda” in the presence of children. The club’s St. Petersburg location was forced to close late last year.

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