Gay rights icon in Russia speaks of abduction

Moscow: In more than five years as one of Russia's most vocal gay rights campaigners, Nikolai Alekseyev has been publicly insulted, repeatedly arrested, and pelted with everything from eggs to fists.

Now, Alekseyev says, he was kidnapped by people he believes to be members of Russia's security services and held for two days at different locations outside Moscow where plainclothes officers threatened and verbally abused him.

Alekseyev disappeared September 15, sending ripples of anxiety through Russia's small and embattled gay rights community and prompting statements of concern from European Union lawmakers. He resurfaced two days later, saying he had been detained while trying to board a plane at Domodedovo Airport here. His detention was an effort, Alekseyev said in a telephone interview on Monday, to get him to drop lawsuits filed with the European Court of Human Rights against the Moscow authorities, with whom he has tussled for years over the right to hold rallies here in the capital.

Though homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, and many large cities now have gay clubs and bars, many top officials have voiced strong opposition to broader gay rights.

Alekseyev has clashed repeatedly with the Moscow government in his attempts to organize annual marches. Moscow's mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, has called the events satanic, and even small-scale demonstrations have been crushed by the police.

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Alekseyev said he was preparing to board a flight to Geneva on September 15 when security officials told him his baggage needed further inspection. He was taken to a room and held for more than two hours, he said, before four men in civilian clothes arrived.

"You can take him," an airport security official said, according to Alekseyev. When he asked where they were taking him, he said, one of the men answered, "You'll see."

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Officials at the airport told Russian news agencies that Alekseyev had been detained for refusing to abide by security procedures. He denied that.

He said he was able to make a few quick phone calls to Russian news agencies before the four men whisked him out of the airport and drove him to a police station in Kashira, a town about 80 miles from Moscow.

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Once there, he said, the men "exerted constant psychological pressure," demanding that he drop his lawsuits with the European Court.

The men also confiscated his cellphone and sent a series of bizarre text messages to Russian news agencies, including one that said Alekseyev had dropped his claims against the Moscow government and had fled to Belarus to seek political asylum. By that point, the story began to be picked up by major Russian and foreign news agencies.

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Later, he said, he was moved to a police department in Tula, about 115 miles from Moscow, where he was held until Friday, when he was driven to the outskirts of town and told to "get out."

"They let me go, as I understand, because of the noise that was raised over my detainment," Alekseyev said.

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Back in Moscow, Alekseyev said he still had little idea exactly who was behind his detention. The men never identified themselves, and Moscow's tight-lipped police force has issued no statements on the matter.

Alekseyev said he and several other people planned to go ahead with a rally scheduled for Tuesday outside city hall to protest, among other things, Luzhkov's use of the word "fags" to describe gay rights advocates.

The authorities, unsurprisingly, have not granted them permission to do so.