Ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi this week, Human Rights Watch has released a video detailing the brutal physical attacks openly carried out against members of the LGBT community in Russia.
Much of the horrifying footage is compiled from videos uploaded by the attackers themselves.
"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," Tanya Cooper, a Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times.
Anti-LGBT vigilante groups operate openly in Russia, often attacking people in public and posting videos online to humiliate victims and boast about their impunity from punishment.
"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," HRW said in a statement. "[Victims] 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."
On Friday, 40 human rights and LGBT groups issued a call to corporate sponsors of the Olympics to act to urge Russia to "halt the rising tide of discrimination, harassment, and threats against [LGBT] people".
Russian president Vladimir Putin has denied claims that gay men and women might be at risk during the games. "[Gay] people can feel free and at ease," he said, "but please leave the children alone".
[Via Gawker]
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