The news is a real shocker to all LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) activists: Yuri Guaiana, member of gay rights Certi Diritti Association, and four Russian activists from the non-profit organization AllOut, have been detained this morning. They were delivering signed petitions (collected via AllOut website) to the Russian Attorney General requesting to open an investigation about arbitrary detention, tortures and murders of homosexual in the Chechnya.
In the afternoon Guiana has been set free and taken to the airport to be expelled from the country. “The other four Russian activists, Sasha Alekseeva, Marina Dedales, Valentina Dekhtyarenko, Nikita Safronov were also realesed shortly before Yuri, who had to face the expulsion practices. They will continue their battle in the difficult conditions they daily experience in Putin’s Russia. We will stay close to them in their battle” said Leonardo Monaco (Certi Diritti), Marco Cappato (Associazione Luca Coscioni) and Riccardo Magi (secretary of Radicali Italiani).
Previously Monaco, secretary of Certi Diritti Association, posted on Facebook: “We are in contact with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: their officials are on site. We know Yuri is well and we know the location of his confinement.”
Our demands must be determined and unanimous: instead of persecute Guaiana and the other activists , Russian authorities should thoroughly investigate Chechnya’s events. On the other hand, the Italian government, along with all other EU members, must take serious interest and respect in fundamental human rights, they should be pressuring those countries that violate them and they should try to bury persecutions.
Yuri Guaiana explained his visit to Moscow with these words: “We are here to deliver 2 million of signed petitions to the Attorney General. It has never happened before. Russian citizens deserve to live in freedom, in a state of justice. Russia must follow the mandate international treaties. Nobody should sacrifice their own freedom and their own life on account of who they are, of who they love; not in Chechnya, not anywhere else.”
Pier
translation by Barbara
©Il Grande Colibrì
