With just days left until the start on Friday of the Sochi Winter Olympics, Human Rights Watch released a video on Tuesday that highlights the disturbing violence
and discrimination that gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people face in Russia.
In a statement accompanying the footage, Human Rights Watch urged the Russian authorities to address the “deteriorating situation” of abuse against LGBT people and activists, saying that a failure to act has exposed them to further harassment and violence and has emboldened attackers.
“By turning a blind eye to hateful homophobic rhetoric and violence, Russian authorities are sending a dangerous message as the world is about to arrive on its doorstep for the Olympics that there is nothing
wrong with attacks on gay people,” said Tanya Cooper, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The video is a feature compiled by the rights group to show the attacks that are organized on LGBT people in Russia. The attacks are posted online, mostly by vigilante groups, to humiliate their victims and as propaganda.
The rights group’s statement on Tuesday said, in part:
LGBT people face stigma, harassment and violence in their everyday lives in Russia, and LGBT victims of violence and groups told Human Rights Watch that these problems intensified in 2013. Victims in cities including Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk told Human Rights Watch they were attacked in public places, abducted, beaten, harassed, threatened and psychologically abused. They told Human Rights Watch that they were afraid to go to the police to report violence, fearing further harassment and believing the police would not bother to pursue their attackers. When victims did lodge complaints with the police, few investigations followed.
Stuart Elliott of The Times reported last month that activists have been trying to hijack promotions by sponsors of the Sochi Olympics in protest over LGBT discrimination in Russia, particularly a federal law that bans “homosexual propaganda.”
Last Friday, 40 leading human rights and LGBT groups added their voices to a new protest in the form of a joint letter that urged corporate sponsors to take action to halt “the rising tide of discrimination, harassment and threats” against LGBT people.
It urged them to speak out against Russia’s “propaganda” law and to ask the International Olympic Committee to make reforms to monitor and prevent human rights abuses in future host countries.
Andrew Roth reported last month, the law, signed by President Vladimir V. Putin in June, authorizes arrests and fines for those who spread “propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientations” among minors, a legal term that critics have called vague and that relies on Russian prosecutors and judges for interpretation.
A video in October offered a view of what that law looks like in action.
Ahead of the Olympics, Mr. Putin has sought to head off the simmering controversy. On Jan. 17, he said visitors to Sochi, including gay men and lesbians, could be “relaxed and calm.”
“But please, leave the children alone,” he added.