30/11/2025
The Russian state has, in the words of independent news site, Media Zona, committed yet another "outrageous" character assassination of a dissenter in its continuing authoritarianism. The Peter Tatchell Foundation for Human Rights describes the posthumous prosecution of gay travel agent Andrei Kotov as "authoritarianism at its most cynical". Kotov was arrested in late 2024 and later committed suicide in prison. His charges were that he was part of the "International LGBT Movement", which we all know does not exist, but which is a catch all term in Russia to quash queer dissent as well as control the media, internet and other outlets. Kotov was prosecuted even after his death, in a Nazi style show trial.
Meanwhile, Radio Free Europe, a dissident broadcaster which beams pro democracy programming at countries which have no independent media such as Russia, catches up with Ukrainian civilians who were detained by Russia in its notoriously harsh prisons after troops captured people randomly in occupied cities. “We got up at six in the morning. We couldn't sit down. We stood until ten in the evening,” a prisoner, Mr Akhmetov said. “Many people's legs were sore and swollen. And we stood like that until August 2023.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-russian-prisoner-beaten-release/336060...
