Word: alexeyev
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...Alexeyev's march. There, an estimated 30 protesters unwrapped rainbow banners and chanted for less than half a minute before Moscow riot police rounded up and arrested everyone involved. Alexeyev, who came to the parade accompanied by a man in a bride's dress, was swiftly carried off by riot police. One woman, who was surrounded by cameras, was grabbed by riot police as she was giving interviews, her shirt torn on the way to the police bus. Peter Tatchell, a British gay-rights activist, flew to Moscow for the event. He was speaking to reporters before...
...Alexeyev was held overnight in prison and was interrogated for hours at a time. "The psychological pressure was overwhelming," he told TIME. "This was by far the worst treatment from the police that I have ever received." He has been arrested four times since starting Gayrussia.ru in 2005. Still, Alexeyev says he will not stop until gay and lesbian couples have the same rights as all other Russians. "We want the right to adopt children and the right to get married." His work has come at a price. When he came out at 22, he was in the middle...
...between protests, Alexeyev works with human-rights lawyers to defend gay rights within Russia's bureaucratic court system. Last week a lesbian couple in Moscow was refused the right to get married; Alexeyev plans to take the case to court. He has had some success with legislation. Last year his activism helped change a law that barred gays and lesbians from donating blood. Alexeyev speaks regularly to gay groups outside Moscow to promote his message of equal rights. "Moscow and St. Petersburg is one thing," he says. "There are clubs and communities [in the big cities,] but being...
...Alexeyev had hoped that the Eurovision finals would help his cause, he was wrong. The events were treated with an awkward silence from Eurovision organizers. The Dutch team had threatened to pull out of the competition if the parade was banned, but the team did not qualify for the finals. And the Norwegian winner, Alexander Rybak, patronizingly told a press conference, "I think it's a little bit sad that they chose to have the protest today. They spent all their energy on that parade, while the biggest gay parade in the world [an allusion to the campy performances...
Nevertheless, Alexeyev tries to find a silver lining to the suppression of his march. "We changed the location of the march at the last minute so that we wouldn't be attacked by anti-gay groups like previous years," he says. "This is the first year that no one was seriously injured in the parade." In gay Russia, that counts for an achievement...