Russian activist brutally stabbed after Saw-inspired website promoted gay hunting ‘game’
- Body of LGBTQ rights activist Yelena Grigorieva found near her home in St Petersburg with eight stab wounds and signs she’d been strangled
- The grisly attack is the latest in a spate of violence and threats against the gay community in Russia
The frightening Russian website promoted it as a “game” – identify gay people, upload their photos and information to a database and then proceed to hunt them down and torture them, like the gruesome Saw movies that inspired the site’s name.
The page was blocked in Russia last week, but not before the names of prominent journalists and activists began appearing there.
Yelena Grigorieva was among them. The 41-year-old was a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights, and on Saturday she was found dead near her home in St Petersburg with eight stab wounds and signs she’d been strangled.
One suspect has been arrested, local media reported.
The grisly attack is the latest in a spate of violence and threats against the gay community in Russia, where in 2013 the government outlawed so-called “gay propaganda” – a ban that a European court later said “reinforced stigma and prejudice and encouraged homophobia”.
“This tragedy is yet another painful episode in the ongoing plague of anti-LGBTQ violence and atrocities that have been taking place in Russia and the region,” Jay Gilliam, global director of the Human Rights Campaign, said.