RUSSIA: Gay Man Beaten To Death After Coming Out To Drinking Companions

Russian police have confirmed that a gay man was beaten to death in Volgograd on Thursday after he came out to men he'd been drinking with.

A spokeswoman for the Volgograd office of the Investigative Committee said on May 12 that the battered body of the unidentified victim was found on the morning of May 10. Two men, aged 22 and 27, have been arrested in connection with the attack. According to investigators, the 23-year-old victim had been drinking with the two men to celebrate Victory Day on May 9 when he told them he was gay. The two men then allegedly beat him, sodomized him with a beer bottle, and smashed in his skull with a stone.

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It is rare for law enforcement authorities in Russia to specify suspicions that homophobia was the motive in an attack, and activists say many attacks against gays are not treated or described as such by the police.  Prominent gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev said a bill to outlaw spreading "homosexual propaganda" among minors, given preliminary approval by parliament in January, would make Russians less likely to fear consequences for attacking gays. "This monstrous incident in Volgograd demonstrates the fruits of the homophobic policy that is being conducted in this country, including the initiative to ban homosexual propaganda," Interfax news agency quoted Alexeyev as saying.