Watch: Russian Riot Police Raid Gay Bar
A video shared Saturday by a Russian media outlet shows Russian police raiding another gay bar less than two weeks after the country's highest court designated LGBTQ activists as extremists.
As reported by NBC, Ura.ru shared a video that appeared to show riot officers entering a bar and then abruptly cutting the music and turning the lights on.
"The officers can be heard yelling, and then about a dozen or so patrons and bar staff can be seen filing out of the venue," NBC reports. "The video was taken inside Fame, a gay bar in Russia's fourth largest city, Yekaterinburg, according to the news outlet. Ura.ru, which is also based in Yekaterinburg, had historically been critical of the Russian government, but the outlet has more recently been described as 'Kremlin-friendly.'"
According to NBC, more gay bars in Moscow were similarly raided by Russian police the previous weekend. The raids are reportedly a part of a crackdown on LGBTQ rights in the country with LGBTQ people seen as members of an extremist group.
Per Russian law, those found guilty of participating or financing extremism can be sentenced up to 12 years in prison.
"It's a bleak, bleak part of history for Russian LGBTQ society, unfortunately," said Renat Davletgildeev, an LGBTQ activist and journalist who fled Russia last year. "And we are only on the first step on the way to hell."
A woman named Alyokhina, who identifies as queer, said she has been arrested for her activism several times. She escaped Russia last year to avoid further persecution.
"In Russia, there is a dark joke that there is no level of bottom," she said. "So, it definitely can be worse, and with this terrible law it would be worse."
Watch the clip of the raid.