Police raid ‘My Little Pony’ gathering and a gay night at a local club in Russia

Russian police and undercover agents raided a Moscow nightclub featuring an unofficial gay night on Saturday, kicking and beating patrons as they lay prone on a snowy sidewalk and also making nine arrests, according to The Telegraph. Also on Saturday, a convention in Tula dedicated to My Little Pony closed early after it was raided by police in search of illegal LGBTQ+ content, according to the AP.

Such raids have become more frequent after the Russian Supreme Court granted a request from the country’s Ministry of Justice to label the “international LGBT social movement” as “extremist” and illegal last year.

The Typography nightclub in Moscow was celebrating an unofficial gay night when it was raided by uniformed officers and plainclothes operatives wearing masks, as reported by OVD-Info, a Russian activist and advocacy organization. They reportedly forced patrons to lie on the floor, and dragged others outside where they were beaten and kicked. Video provided by OVD-Info appears to show undercover agents kicking and punching a man lying on a snowy sidewalk as uniformed police look watched.

“The security forces forced the party participants to lie on the floor. Those present were photographed, beaten, and threatened with being forced into the war in Ukraine,” OVC-Info said on the Russian-language VK social media platform.

Police reportedly arrested nine of the “most feminine-looking” men from the patrons, OVD-Info alleged.

Also on Saturday, the Mi Amore convention in Moscow was closed early after uniformed police received a tip that the gathering popular with devotees to My Little Pony was exposing children to culturally and sexually inappropriate content from the banned extremist international LGBT movement.

No illegal content was found, but police asked the organizers to close the event a few hours early. Organizers opted to shut down the event immediately when it heard additional police were en route to the venue.

Such raids and arrests have become more frequent since the declaration against the undefined “international LGBT movement” last year.

Last month, a woman identified as Anastasia Ershov by the independent Russian news site Zona Media was sentenced to five days in custody for the crime of wearing earrings with Pride colors. The crime was revealed in a staged videotaped encounter with a man objecting to her earrings that took place on January 29.

No further information was available regarding the identities or fate of the nine men reportedly arrested in the raid at the Typography nightclub.