Brooklyn filmmaker Alexander Kargaltsev fled after clash at Moscow pride rally
After military cops turned batons and a Taser gun on him at a Moscow gay pride rally, Alexander Kargaltsev decided to get out of Russia.
“They left us lying in blood in the street,” he said.
The clash punctuated a series of attacks — from skinheads with brass knuckles outside a gay club and by thugs who set up a fake online dating profile and jumped him when he arrived to meet his “date.”
But the 27-year-old Brooklyn filmmaker believes that since he left for the U.S. two years ago, gay bashing back home has become an even bigger problem.
A growing number of Russians are getting asylum in the U.S. because of their sexual orientation or gender identity as their homeland cracks down on gay rights groups.
Getting Asylum: Immigtants Fleeing Harsh Anti-Gay Laws Face Catch-22(http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/numbers-growing-number-gays-lesbians-asylum-u-s-challenges-immigrants-remain-article-1.1046713)
Last month, St. Petersburg politicians passed a law banning “promotion” of homosexuality — effectively making it a crime to write, talk or hold meetings about being gay.
Human Rights Watch says that law and similar ones in other Russian cities could make rainbow flag T-shirts illegal.
“It’s getting worse,” said Kargaltsev, who won asylum in May.
The U.S. granted 21,113 immigrants asylum in 2010; 548 were from Russia.
While the feds don’t reveal the reason for asylum, advocacy group Immigration Equality said that in the last two years, it won more gay and lesbian asylum cases for Russians — 18, including Kargaltsev — than from any other country besides Jamaica.
“We’re seeing a rise in cases from Eastern European countries,” said legal director Victoria Neilson.
“Things are definitely bad in Russia.
It’s a country where the public at large is very homophobic and the government does nothing to protect people.”
Lori Adams of Human Rights First, which represents a broad group of asylum seekers, said she also regularly sees gay and lesbian Russian cases.
“The extent of skinhead violence is so extreme, that when you do see cases here, they are very compelling,” she said.
Kargaltsev won a 2010 scholarship to New York Film Academy in Manhattan and never left.
He works as a consultant at Sothebys and photographs lifeguards in his free time. He’s hoping to publish a book.
During his first year here, he was shocked to see gay men in the street holding hands. Now he thinks back to what a classmate in Russia once told him — that gay people should be rounded up and sent to an island somewhere.
“OK, now I’m on the Manhattan island,” he said.
by Erica Pearson – New York Daily News
Source – The New York Daily News
