Russian Gay Activist Kidnapped, Drugged

Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev, who was arrested by police this week at a Moscow airport, says he was kidnapped, threatened, and pressured by his captors to withdraw a complaint against Moscow authorities from the European Court of Human Rights, according to Radio Free Europe.

Alekseev was arrested September 15 as he prepared to board a flight to Geneva. Friends and colleagues had been unable to reach him on his cell phone, but various news agencies reported receiving texts from him saying he had been taken to Belarus and intended to seek political asylum there.

A spokeswoman for the airport told Russian news agencies Alekseev was detained after refusing to take off his shoes at the security check. Alekseev says this isn't true, claiming airport security detained him, then turned him over a group of unidentified men in plainclothes.

He says he was then driven to a police station in Kashira, a small town some 100 kilometers south of Moscow. It was there he says he spent the next two days.

"The first night, I slept on a chair and a table," he told Radio Free Europe. "I spent the second night on a kind of banquette. They gave me water, but I think it was laced with something because my reactions were very slow and I felt completely disoriented. I was given very simple food like biscuits."

Read the full story here.