After Appearing in An Anti Gay Hit List She is Found Murdered At Her Apt. in St. Petersburg
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| Yelena Grigoryeva |
When Yelena Grigoryeva’s body was discovered on July 21, it had been lying in some bushes outside her apartment building in St Petersburg for 12 hours.
That same day, the city’s investigative committee opened a criminal case into the murder of the 41-year-old LGBTQ+ activist. On July 25, investigators announced the arrest of a 38-year-old man from Kyrgyzstan on suspicion of the murder. Another suspect, known to this man, was detained on August 1. Police investigators claim that Grigoryeva had known her killer and that the two had been drinking together on the evening before the murder. Grigoryeva had allegedly died in the course of a “sudden domestic dispute” with her killer, during which she was stabbed at least eight times in the back and face, dying from her injuries at the scene.
Grigoryeva’s friends and colleagues have been quick to share their grief and anger on social media, along with their suspicions about the police’s account of events. They suspect that she was killed for her activism; specifically her LGBTQ+ activism. Their comments were posted under the Russian hashtag #ЗащититеЛюдейОтПилы and the English hashtag #ProtectPeopleFromSaw.
I don’t believe that Yelena Grigoryeva was brutally murdered by some regular migrant worker, given that not long before her murder she had received threats from the homophobic non-people from the homophobic Saw group.I demand a thorough investigation. The state should not appease murderers. #ЗащититеЛюдейОтПилы— ᴀʀɪɴᴀ ᴅᴀᴢᴇ (@onprendra) July 23, 2019
Many were quick to point out that Grigoryeva’s name had featured on what appears to be a hit list from the homophobic website “Saw Against LGBT.”
The photojournalist George Markov writes:
In St Petersburg there is still active pressure on activists. If earlier it was arrests and criminal charges, now it’s murder. The political activist Yelena Grigoryeva, a supporter of LGBT views and simply a person with an active civic position, has been killed. […] And I also want to remind you that Yelena was on the list of the homophobic site ‘Saw,’ which has been threatening LGBT-activists throughout the country for a long time already.”– George Markov, Facebook, 22 July 2019
While her colleagues said that Grigoryeva had reported violent threats to law enforcement before, the city’s branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs insisted that she had filed reports related to “various conflict situations” – but not death threats. The St Petersburg activist Dinar Idrisov, who knew Grigoryeva personally, rejected this account:
Yelena and her lawyer had reported on violence and threats [of violence] to law enforcement agencies, but there was no discernible reaction. It was like they said “If they kill you – call us.” She wasn’t able to make that call.– Dinar Idrisov, Facebook, 22 July 2019
Earlier this month, screenshots from the “Saw Against LGBT” website began circulating online after the group (named after the American horror movie franchise “Saw”) posted an “anniversary” message on July 1. Featuring a picture of a noose, the post outlined plans for anti-LGBTQ+ acts and promised “dangerous and cruel gifts” to dozens of Russian LGBTQ+ individuals, activists, allies, and journalists. Yelena Grigoryeva herself was among those who saw the group’s message containing her name. She even shared a screenshot of the threatening post on Facebook on July 3.
“Saw against LGBT” declares its five-year “anniversary,” promising a “new season” in its campaign against LGBT people. Website screenshot, taken from Yelena Grigoryeva’s Facebook page.
The list also named the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Radio Svoboda, RFE/RL’s Russian language service, as well as several civil society organizations. The Yekaterinburg LGBT Resource Centre also reported receiving a threatening email from “Saw” on July 16. The Resource Centre has formally requested that local police investigate the email as a hate crime, and has previously been successful in persuading courts in the Sverdlovsk region to issue fines for homophobic comments on social media.
Following complaints by the Yekaterinburg-based NGO, the “Saw” website was blocked on July 17. LGBTQ+ rights activists have apparently been trying to get the authorities to investigate who is behind the website since it first appeared in spring 2018. Furthermore, the site has been responsible for leaking personal data on activists and anybody knew or presumed to be LGBTQ+, and allegedly even offered to pay “gay-hunters” to attack people.
Grigoryeva’s death came as a shock to others whose names appeared on the “hit list.” On July 23, YouTube star Andrei Petrov shared his reaction on Instagram, stating that although he had initially dismissed the list as a “provocation,” Grigoryeva’s killing made him fear for his life. In a video the following day, Petrov shared the first threatening email he received from an alleged member of “Saw,” telling him to transfer money into a Sberbank account if he wanted to “avoid a gift.”
On July 28, self-described “openly gay” Youtuber Zhenya Svetsky shared what he called his “last video” in response to Grigoryeva’s death, saying he feared for his life because his name had also appeared on the list. In an accompanying Instagram post, he explained that he had been receiving threats from a member of “Saw” since February and that on June 20 he was given a month to leave Russia.
Recent days have also seen international support for an investigation into the suspicious murder. The German Foreign Office condemned Grigoryeva’s murder on Twitter, writing that they “expect a complete and transparent investigation of the circumstances, particularly whether her murder was related to her work for LGBTI rights.” On July 24, protestors also gathered outside of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, to call for an investigation into the activist’s killing.
According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, a Ukrainian NGO, the appearance of more hate speech against Grigoryeva online in response to her murder is further evidence that she may have been targeted for her activism. For example, self-proclaimed anti-gay “civic activist” Timur Bulatov referred to Grigoryeva’s murder as a “moral Jihad” and asked “who’s next?” on social media.
Nikita Tomilov, a lawyer and human rights activist, shared one of Bulatov’s posts with the words:
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