Ruslan Porshnev, pictured, is a gay Russian activist with an excellent command of English and was responsible for organizing the Queer Russia group on Google in March 2011. It's a terrific listserv of Russian and Western activists sharing information and ideas, which I've been a part of since it started.
In recent weeks, Ruslan launched an English-language news portal also named Queer Russia and it's a fabulous site regularly updated with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender news from Russia unavailable anywhere else on the web. Here's how he describes the portal:
Queerussia brings together Russian and foreign LGBTQ activists, bloggers, journalists and concerned citizens who want to know more about queer issues in Russia, progress on LGBTQ rights, queer activism, public events, advocacy, homophobia, etc.
This video was posted earlier this week and is a fine example of important gay news from Moscow, that I believe should be of interest to the many Westerners who in recent months developed concerns for gays over there. A description of the action comes from the creators of the video at the Grani.ru site that was cross-posted to Ruslan's site:
Rayda Lin, Nix Nemeni, Ildar Dadin and Roman Petriscev were detained by the police during their march on Arbat street. [...]
A team of paramedics was called to Arbat police station to give medical help to Ildar Dadin, reports OVDinfo – a site that monitors state’s violence.”Putin began with actions against gays”, “Hitler began with actions against gays” – LGBT action was held demonstratively at the same time when President Putin was receiving the Olympics’ Torch at the Red Square and by the opinion of LGBT activists had to show the same ideology roots of the two politics and their regimes.
The police today was so tough that several witnesses of the action were protesting aloud. Passersby started discussion with gay activists and did not agreed with their position, nevertheless, eyewitnesses were trying to calm down the policemen. The situation deteriorated due to action of a passerby man who voluntarily “helped” the police and used force and violence against LGBT protesters.
In the centre of a poster that was held by gay activists was a collective portrait of Hitler, Putin, deputies Mizulina and Zhuravlev. [...]
Six gay activists were participating in Arbat action. Two of them have managed to escape, four – arrested. Grani.ru project uploaded the LGBT action’s video to the Internet. English translation presented by Yerdna Bananes.
Let's hope the four people arrested have their charges dismissed and they are ok.
Stay informed about our brothers and sisters in Russia via Queer Russia, and help spread the word about the news portal far and wide.
Very Brave ! I initialy thought the Russian authority is better what i just witnessed but No. The action shows how homophobic the police can be. I wonder
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