Andrej Kotov, a Russian arrested for organizing travel tours for LGBTQ+ people, allegedly committed suicide while in custody. This was reported by human rights groups and Russian state media on Sunday, TASR writes, according to an AFP report.
Last month, the director of the travel agency Men Travel was accused by the Russian authorities of participating in “extremist” activities and also of organizing them. It happened within of the Kremlin’s extensive crackdown on people whose lifestyles are not in line with “traditional values” writes AFP.
The human rights group OVD-Info quoted the lawyer Kotova, to whom the investigators informed that the man had committed suicide early Sunday morning. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti confirmed the cause of death.
According to OVD-Info, 40-year-old Kotov claimed that he had already been beaten during last month’s arrest. At the same time, Russian state media published a video in November in which investigators interrogated a man on the ground, writes AFP. In Russia, from 2022, the so-called “LGBT propaganda” among adults. In 2023, a ban on various forms of gender reassignment was added.
