In mid-July, a gay, HIV-positive foreigner arrived at an immigration office in Moscow seeking asylum in Russia. Unlike in his native Uzbekistan, where sex between men is punishable by up to three years in prison, Russia has not criminalized homosexual relations. But as he and his lawyer discussed his case with an immigration officer, their interlocutor made clear she had no sympathy for people like him. “If it were up to me, they would all be put up against a wall,” the officer with the Moscow branch of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate of Migration Affairs said, according to audio of the conversation obtained by RFE/RL.
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