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III. Detentions and Aftermath

Eleven women and two men were arrested, among them Kiseliev, his face still bleeding. He recounted, “In the avtozak [truck used to transport prisoners] it was very hot, with no windows or ventilation. I felt dizzy after having been beaten up. The riot police were making jokes about us and degrading remarks. I complained that I probably had a concussion and needed medical help. They only joked, ‘Your head is not an ass, tie it and lie down.’”¹⁷ In 30-degree heat, they waited in the truck in the sun for over an hour. Police then drove the truck to Presnenskaya police station, farther from the center: “They told us the Tverskaya station was overloaded; but then we stayed in the bus here [at Presnenskaya] for two hours more, outside the station, in the heat,” another of the people who had been detained told us.¹⁸  Police continued to refuse the wounded Kisiliev medical attention.¹⁹  They threatened to close the only window in the overheated truck, and to “make us stay a day and a night,”²⁰ unless those arrested gave up their mobile phone batteries voluntarily so that they could not communicate with the outside world.  One woman told Human Rights Watch, 

Once we were in the station, the police told us, “No one needs lesbians, no one will ever get you out of here.”  They kept asking each other, “Why did they bring these homos here? We don’t want them.”  And they asked us, “How will you perverts have children?” ²¹

Although a number of Western European demonstrators were detained or injured, Russians detained received far worse treatment from police. Alexey Kisiliev waited almost four hours for police to call an ambulance while he bled from head injuries. Activists, including a Human Rights Watch representative, voiced serious concern at Tverskaya police station over Sergey Konstaninov’s health, as he had recently been on a 15-day hunger strike during detention after another demonstration.  Nonetheless, he was held overnight and received no medical care. Human Rights Watch and ILGA-Europe know of no instance where one of these Russian detainees sought and was allowed to file a formal complaint about police misconduct.²²

After the arrests, skinheads and nationalists lingered on Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street across from Tverskaya police station, menacing LGBT rights supporters who were waiting for their colleagues, and stalking those who had been released. Seva Chernozub of the Free Radicals said,

There was a group of about 20 skinheads right across the street from the police station, and one Orthodox priest. They pelted us with eggs.  The priest approached me and he punched me on the face …

I grabbed him by his arm and asked the police to come and arrest him for the attack, but they wouldn’t move. Then my colleagues from Free Radicals helped me take the priest inside the police station. I told the police what happened … The police didn’t know how to handle the case, but the priest was still inside when I left the station.²³

Around 10 of these nationalists followed a small group of LGBT rights supporters, including a Human Rights Watch representative, along Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street as they left the police station.  The band of extremists grew, summoning others by mobile phone, but the rights activists were able to find a taxi and get away.  The extremists also followed an ILGA-Europe representative who had departed the police station with a few LGBT people; the LGBT supporters pointed out the menacing nationalist group to a traffic policeman and asked him to call other police for help. He refused.  They hailed cars; as they got in, the extremists pounded on the window, made Nazi salutes, and cried, “We are watching you!”