Gay raids spread to North Ossetia

People posing as police officers lured a resident of Vladikavkaz to a date with a young man, after which they forced him to cooperate, demanding that he give them data on other gays.

As reported by "Kavkazsky Uzel", in July 2024, human rights activists reported that security forces in Dagestan, after the arrest of porn actor Matvey Volodin, launched a campaign against gays and organized raids on them. One of the detainees, Yusuf, left Russia after he was forced to agree to cooperate with the security forces.

The story of the provocation against a homosexual young man from Vladikavkaz, named Zaur, was published by human rights activists on June 26, but the events described, according to them, took place in mid-April. The victim is not sure that the people who forced him to hand over other gays to them were actually security forces, as they introduced themselves, the "North Caucasus SOS Crisis Group" reported (the Crisis Group SK SOS (North Caucasus SOS Crisis Group) has been recognized as a foreign agent).

According to Zaur, he agreed to meeting with a young man he met in a Telegram chat for gays from the North Caucasus. Initially, he was waiting for his new acquaintance to come to his home, but he did not show up. Only a few hours later, he contacted Zaur and invited him over, citing the fact that he was allegedly too lazy to go.

A white Lada Granta without license plates pulled up near the house where the young man invited Zaur. The men in civilian clothes introduced themselves as police officers from the drug enforcement department and quickly showed him their IDs, covering their names and other information with their fingers. After searching Zaur on the spot, they demanded his phone number, after which they put him in a car allegedly for a trip to the police station. The guy Zaur had agreed to meet was already in the car.

From the men's conversations, Zaur concluded that they were organizing fake dates for gays in order to blackmail them. Instead of going to the police station, they brought the young man to a cemetery outside the city, where they threatened him until the morning criminal case, extorted money and forced them to hand over other homosexuals to him. Having taken Zaur's phone, they tried to apply for a loan through banking applications, but the loan was not approved. They subsequently released Zaur, warning that they would contact him again.

A resident of Vladikavkaz notes that the alleged security officials did not beat him or threaten him with a weapon. The next day, he discovered that unknown individuals had gained access to his WhatsApp account by logging into it from two other devices. Two days later, the same people called him, but hung up when Zaur told them of his intention to contact the police. A few days later, an unknown man called Zaur and asked whether he had filed a statement "in the Iristonsky district": according to Zaur, the extortionists were trying to check whether he had carried out his threat.

The young man noted that in North Ossetia, there had been no previous practice of rounding up gays and fake dates, which is why homosexuals from other North Caucasian republics often came to Vladikavkaz in search of acquaintances. Human rights activists compared his story with the story of Rizvan Dadaev from Chechnya, who was tortured for several months because of his sexual orientation, but was later able to leave the country.

* The LGBT movement is recognized as an extremist organization.

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