Six men jailed for kidnapping and torturing gay teens on camera
Six members of the homophobic group Occupy Paedophilia have been jailed.
Police in the Russia arrested nine members of the group who found their unsuspecting young victims using personal ads.
They tricked the young men ā many of them teenagers ā into showing up for a ādateā.
However, the unsuspecting victims would then be taken captive, taken to a secluded spot, before being tortured and humiliated while being recorded on video.
In many of the images and videos seized by authorities, the victims were seen stripped to their underwear, beaten, covered in blood and forced to use sex toys on themselves whilst being photographed or recorded.
A trademark of the gang was to shave their victims head and paint them in rainbow colours ā in an attempt to mock the universal symbol of LGBT solidarity and pride.
In one such video, a teenager is shown being force fed watermelon while his abusers shout, āfags should dieā in the background.
Nine members of the group were found guilty of at least 19 attacks against gay people.
Their crimes included death threats, torture and causing āmoderate damage to healthā.
Despite this, they were not found guilty of participating in an āextremist groupā.
Six of the group were jailed for up to six years in prison, while three others received suspended sentences.
The group ā started by Maxim Martsinkevich ā claim they are simply trying to āidentify and report paedophilesā.
In August last year Martsinkevich was sentenced to five years in a labour camp after his actions were exposed in a Channel 4 documentary ā but later he successfully appealed to have the sentence reduced.
A new poll published last week showed that attitudes towards gay people in Russia had hardened.
The results showed more than half of Russian citizens say they think gay people should either be isolated from society or āliquidatedā.
Many have attributed the hardening of views to an anti-gay law which was passed in Russia in 2013.
The law bans the āpromotion of non-traditional sexual relationsā to minors, and LGBT hate crimes have increased drastically since it was introduced.
