In Krasnoyarsk the local authorities once again have executed tyranny towards homosexuals.
Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. August 31st, 2008. Early morning. The SOBR unit's officers raided the "Hunter", a local gay club where the regular Saturday gay-party was going on.
Igor N., one of the witness and involuntary participant of the developing events inside and outside of the club reported that the SOBR unit stormed the club near midnight. The armed policemen rushed into the club using obscene language, breaking the crockery, turning upside down club's furniture and shooting in the air.
The policemen ordered everyone in the club onto the floor with faces down and put hands over the head. At the same time some of the visitors of the gay club were being beaten and kicked, some others were wounded by the broken glass. Then all male visitors with their heads bent down and hands over the head were violently forced to the bus standing nearby. Ongoing beating by the policemen that stood in a line and made a passage to the bus continued.
In such condition the arrested people were taken to the local detainment police office and again they were ordered to go to another room, beating and kicking continued. The police ordered them to turn to the wall and put their hands over their heads. The mockery continued. The police humiliated the detained visitors of the "Hunter" gay club by using naughty and obscene expressions such as "fags", etc.
Igor N. continues his story. "Then the policemen with no clear reason ordered to bend down halfway, make squats, sit-ups and push-ups until exhaustion. The show was being taped on the mobile phones of the representatives of the law enforcement body with absurd laughter, obscene language and insults to everyone in general and to individuals in particular. After that "gym show" began the main main procedure for which the visitors of the club had been forcefully taken to the detainment centre. The police began gathering personal information on detainees: personal photos en-face and profile, complete addresses of residence. The police also questioned everyone who was a newcomer to Krasnoyarsk about theirs purpose of visit, checked their wallets and everything that was inside of it, read sms and mms messages, watched video files stored in the phones of the detained people". According to Igor N.'s words, the media content and the content of the wallets was the only criterion for the police investigators to identify a person whether he or she is a homosexual or not.
Around 2 o'clock in the morning all detainees were taken in the same bus and condition to the Zheleznodorozhnyi District Police Department of Krasnoyarsk. There the arrested visitors of the gay club came through another identification (or best to say - humiliation) procedure, but at that time they were ordered to give their fingerprints. During that procedure the SOBR men were passing along the beaten and intimidated detainees that were standing in usual position - face to the wall and hands over the head. Some of the policemen continued to kick those, who as the police thought, stood easy. For three hours people were not allowed to go to the bathroom.
More than once
For the present we do not have any information what was the real reason for the detainment of the club's visitors. Earlier such an activity was justified by the police as part of a search operations to catch a paedophile or a drug-dealer.
It is worth reminding that a similar raid of the SOBR police unit on another gay club in Krasnoyarsk - "Neon" took place in May 2005. Then in the winter 2006 the law enforcement bodies once again paid an official visit to the gay club "Neon" together with the reporters and cameras of the local television company "STS-Prima". Soon after such joint visit "Neon" was closed.
According to Mr. Igor Petrov, an executive director of the Russian LGBT Net, "in Krasnoyarsk took place the mass violation of human rights". "Right away I would not tell all the norms of the European Treaty and the Russian laws that were violated - these were too many. For our part, we would do everything necessary to start a legal procedure and to bring all those responsible to the court",-promised Mr.Petrov.
Translated by Yerdna Bananes