LGBT rights advocates recount Moscow arrests

One of the 10 LGBT rights advocates who was arrested in the Russian capital just before the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics told the Washington Blade on Saturday that police officers beat and threatened to sexually assault them while in custody.

Elena Kostynchenko said during a telephone interview from Moscow that she and the other activists were arrested when they began singing the Russian national anthem in Red Square. The group that included Ulrika Westerlund and another member of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights held rainbow and Russian flags during the protest.

Kostynchenko told the Blade the officers handcuffed some of activists to a cage in which they placed her and the other protesters once they brought them to a nearby police station.

She said authorities beat one of them and choked another. Kostynchenko told the Blade that officers asked her and another female activist to go upstairs and perform oral sex on them – she noted they also made lewd comments about her body.

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2014/02/08/lgbt-rights-advocates-discuss-moscow-arrests/