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Gay News: Gay right activist Nikolai Alexeyev who was arrested at Moscow airport and held for two days has been released
By: Nigel Robinson
Nikolai Alexeyev
Nikolai Alexeyev
Gay rights activist released
20 September 2010
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Alexeyev was arrested at Domodedovo airport in Moscow en route to Geneva on Wednesday 15 September and taken by four men to a police station in Kashira, about 40 kilometres from the airport.
There he claims that the men subjected him to homophobic insults.
They also demanded that he withdraw lawsuits he had filed in the European Court of Human Rights protesting at the banning of gay Pride rallies by Moscow’s City Hall and its Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
The men also took his mobile phone.
Alexeyev was then taken from Kashira to Tula, 200 kilometres south of Moscow.
On Friday 17 September the Interfax news agency said that it had received texts from Alexeyev claiming that he was seeking political asylum in Belarus and that he would be withdrawing the lawsuits.
Alexeyev claims that those texts were sent after his phone had been taken from him.
He was finally released on the outskirts of Tula at dawn on Saturday 18 September, from where he made his own way back to Moscow by bus.
Alexeyev says that he is intending to due Domodedovo airport and its security services, and is calling for an investigation into his kidnapping.
