Russian man Andrei Kotov, who was arrested for allegedly running a travel agency for gay customers was found dead in his prison cell in Moscow according to local media.
Kotov was the director of the “Men Travel” agency, and he was arrested under Russia’s crackdown on the LGBTIQA+ communities where he was charged with “organising extremist activity and participating in it.”
In 2023 the Russian government declared the international movement for LGBTIQA+ rights was an extremist organisation and any advocacy for gay rights in the country would be viewed as a criminal activity.
The law has seen people reportedly arrested for wearing rainbow earrings, and clubs popular with the LGBTIQA+ communities have frequently been raided.
OVD-Info a group who track political arrests said an investigator had told Kotov’s lawyer that her client had taken his own life while in custody.
It had previously been reported that at a court appearance Kotov rejected the charges against him and claimed that law enforcement officers had beat him and administered electric shocks during his arrest, even though he did not resist.
Russian leader Vladamir Putin has previously described that country’s war in Ukraine as a proxy battle for the west’s attack on family values by pushing for LGBTIQA+ rights.
Russia first introduced a law forbidding depictions of non-traditional relationships being viewed by minors in 2013, but a decade later ramped up the laws to include all people.
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