Arrested LGBT Activists In Russia: ‘Cops Beat Us, Said We Have To Suck Their Cocks’

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};

Today, the day of the opening of the Olympic Games, police in Russia arrested about 14 LGBT activists in two separate incidents. Ten of the activists were arrested in Moscow’s Red Square (video here) for singing the national anthem while holding a rainbow flag. They were taken to a local police station, where, they say, some were beaten and threatened with both sexual assault and acts of physical violence.

Buzzfeed is reporting that “Ulrika Westerlund of the LGBT organization RFSL, emailed to BuzzFeed a transcript of a text message exchange she had with Russian activists still in detention that reported at least two of the group had been beaten and threatened with sexual abuse.”

Here is a portion of the transcript, via Buzzfeed’s J. Lester Feder. The “Me” is Ulrika Westerlund:

From them: Yes, in cage. They beated [sic] two of us

Me: oh no, who? What can we do? Can you keep reporting? Are all of you in the same cage?

Them: Two queers. Before that they took us upstairs and said that we have to “suck their cocks” and that we have to be burned. When we said that we gonna complain. So they bring us back to cage. So we dont let them close it without paper, pen and their names. So they beat two of us and then used cuffs

Buzzfeed adds that one of the arrested protest organizers reported that “police officers almost broke two of the protestors’ arms by closing the door of the cage, some were kicked by police officers while handcuffed to the cage, and one protestor was momentarily choked by a police officer placing his arm across his throat.”

Most or all of the arrested are believed to have been released.

Image of Анна Анненкова (Anna Anenkova), one of the Russian activists arrested, by Evgeny Feldman via Facebook.