Russian Gay Rights Activist Nikolai Alekseev Arrested At Moscow Airport Boarding Flight To Geneva; Whereabouts Unknown

UK Gay News is reporting that Nikolai Alekseev, Russia’s most prominent gay rights activist, was arrested Wednesday evening at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. His whereabouts remain unknown. According to the report, he was about to board a Swiss Air Lines flight to Geneva, having cleared a passport control, when Russian border police arrested him. The police apparently asked Swiss Air to cancel Alekseev’s boarding pass, and offload his luggage, delaying the departure for an estimated thirty minutes. Officials say Alekseev is no longer at the airport, and there are suggestions he was transferred to the headquarters of the FSB, which was formally known as the KGB. A law passed by the Russian Parliament and signed into law by President Medvedev in July, affords the FSB unlimited powers of police, including detaining and interrogating persons for long periods without offering any explanations.