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No New Year Party at Moscow’s Oldest Gay Dance Club

Body & Soul Club Shut Down Amid Political Corruption Allegations
 

■ Nikolai Alekseev: “If you are a gay venue, you’d better make money quietly if you don’t want to see the fire department closing your place for security reasons.”

 
MOSCOW, December 31, 2009 (GayRussia) –  The closing of Moscow’s oldest gay dance club, Club Body & Soul, has been named the “main event” of 2009 by the website GayRussia.ru.

And the Moscow Prefect who initiated the closure has been named ‘Homophobe of the Year’.

It all started in July after the Mayor of Moscow, the notorious homophobe Yuri Luzhkov, appointed Oleg Mitvol as Prefect of the northern district of the Russian capital.

Three weeks after taking office, the new Prefect launched a ‘campaign for morality’, targeting Moscow’s oldest gay club located in his district.

“Such places which lead to the moral degradation of citizens and become the source of troubles should be closed,” declared Mr Mitvol in July.

The Prefect insisted that Club Body & Soul was responsible for the development of drug trafficking, prostitution and open air sex in its neighbouring.

The club, which had operated since 2003, regularly hosted over 2,000 visitors each night at week-ends.

In August, after breaking up into the club at night with the  anti-drug police, under the watchful eyes of invited TV crews, the Prefect revealed that the club was renting its premises from the Society of Blind People, who’s vice president, Oleg Smolin, was Mr Mitvol’s main rival in the future local election.

“It’s not a question of a gay club, it’s a question of an electoral campaign which [has] started and in which I am running in the same constituency as the Prefect,” said Mr Smolin, a Member of Parliament.

In September, the club management said it received a termination notice of its renting agreement from the Society of Blind People, which in turn declared that it had been threatened by the city authorities that it would lose its financial aid from the city if it does not cancel the contract with the gay club immediately.

A month later, the Moscow gay community organised a press conference with several Russian pop stars to attract attention to the issue and a petition signed by 1,084 gays and lesbians was sent to the office of the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe.

During the press conference, Lolita, a Russian pop star, declared: “Why in our country do we have things like ‘homosexuality is a genetic deviation; gays must be cured: gays should stay at home’?  We think that this is a return to fascism”.

A Moscow court is expected to hear a complaint against the closing of the club in January.

But it is too late: the club was shut down in November.  The management, however, said it will pursue the case up to the European Court of Human Rights for deprivation of property.

Moscow gay venues located outside Mitvol’s district were never at risk during this campaign.  The owners remain very discreet.

“This is the Yukos-Khodorkovsky syndrome,” commented Nikolai Alekseev who organised the October press conference.

“If you are a registered NGO and are involved in financial issues, you’d better avoid playing too much with the authorities as one day the tax department can storm your office.

“If you are a gay venue, you’d better make money quietly if you don’t want to see the fire department closing your place for security reasons.

“Russian authorities will use anything they can to make you quiet if you start to be too noisy, this is why nothing moves in this country and you see only a few people who risk to confront with the authorities.”

Last October in Geneva, a ‘college’ of UN Human Rights expert found a systematic discrimination based on sexual orientation in Russia.

SEE ALSO

Two Arrested at Moscow Gay Club Following Raid by Police, Prefect – and the Media.  The crusade of Oleg Mitvol, the Prefect of the northern district of Moscow against gay entertainment in the Russian capital reached a new step last night (Friday).   (UK Gay News, August 9, 2009)

Seventy Protest Outside Moscow Gay Club Demanding Its Closure. “Moscow is Not Sodom” chanted a group of 70 people on Saturday in Moscow during a public protest.  (UK Gay News, August 9, 2009)

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