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Gay News: Russian gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev, who was arrested at Moscow airport, has been expelled to Minsk.
By: Nigel Robinson
Nikolai Alexeyev
Nikolai Alexeyev
Russian gay rights activist expelled to Minsk
17 September 2010
Alexeyev, who has organised several gay Pride marches in the Russian capital, was arrested at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on Wednesday 15 March, shortly before taking a plane to Geneva.
In text messages he told friends and supporters that he was being taken 600 kilometres from Moscow in an unspecified direction.
He claimed that officials were pressurising him to retract lawsuits he had filed in the European Court of Human Rights over past gay Pride rallies which had been banned by Moscow’s City Hall, and its Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
Later on Thursday he texted news agency Interfax to say that he had been taken to Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
“I was taken outside the city to some small town police station and was questioned there,” he texted.
“They demanded that I sign a prepared paper stating that I recall the case about gay pride parades from the European Court due to a reached arrangement.”
He vowed that he would return to Moscow by Tuesday in time for the rally against Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
Although Moscow Pride took place this year , Luzhkov has consistently denounced gay Pride events as “satanic” and has described the “propaganda” of gay love as “inadmissible” and a “social plague”.
UPDATE: According to the Moscow News, Alexeyev has now been persuaded to drop his complaints to Strasbourg and the European Court of Human rights, and is reportedly intending to ask the authorities of Belarus for political asylum
