Neo-Nazi Activist Flees Russia Over Anti-Gay Video Campaign

The Moscow Times/November 12, 2013

Neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich, known to be the leader of a radical right-wing movement "Occupy Pedophilia" that targets and harasses gay men in Russia, announced Sunday he had left the country due to possible prosecution over a recent video.

Martsinkevich, also known as Tesak, or Machete, wrote on his VKontakte page Sunday he had left the country "on an urgent vacation" to Thailand to avoid being charged with extremism and face a possible two-year prison sentence. According to Martsinkevich, the authorities may charge him for a video he made in Ukraine last month, in which he humiliated and beat a gay Iraqi man that he found using his "honey trap" tactic.

The video was part of Martsinkevich's "Occupy Pedophilia" campaign, which lures young gay men to meetings with potential sexual partners, where they are abducted, abused and beaten by Martsinkevich's teenage followers before the incidents are posted to the Internet.

Although Martsinkevich has not been officially charged by Russian authorities yet, police reportedly searched his and his parents apartments last week in connection with the case. He posted a photo of a legal complaint from prominent anti-fascist activist Alla Gerber on his VKontakte, though the document was not verifiable.

Police in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk opened a criminal case on hooliganism charges acting on a complaint from the local Iraqi community that one of its members had been trapped, humiliated and beaten by several men when he went to what he thought would be a date.

Martsinkevich has already been convicted twice under Russia's racial hatred law.

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