Warning: graphic images. The leader of “Occupy Pedophilia,” a honey trap movement that targets gay men in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union, could face jail over a video in which he humiliates a gay man from Iraq.
Maxim Martsinkevich / Vkontakte
KIEV, Ukraine — The Russian neo-Nazi behind a right-wing viral video movement that lures gay men into honey traps and humiliates them says he has fled Russia.
Maxim Martsinkevich, known as Tesak ("Machete"), wrote on his VKontakte page on Sunday that he had left Russia "on an urgent vacation" to avoid criminal charges for "extremism," which carry a maximum two-year prison sentence. The charges appear to be based on a video he filmed in Ukraine last month in which he trapped, humiliated and seemingly beat a gay man from Iraq. Prosecutors have yet to charge Martsinkevich, but police searched his and his parents' apartments last week.
Martsinkevich's girlfriend posted a photo from the search on Instagram:
Instagram: @malinovaya88 / Via teh-nomad.livejournal.com
The incident first came to light in Ukraine, where police in the eastern city of Lugansk launched a criminal case for "hooliganism" after members of the country's Iraqi diaspora complained about the attack. One member of the diaspora told a local tabloid that the targeted student had told them he had gone to meet a girl and was then attacked by seven men who threatened him and demanded money. The Iraqis went to file charges, but withdrew them after they saw the video, showing the man with boy presented by Martsinkevich as being 15 years old, and said they wanted the student to leave the country "so as not to cast a shadow on the rest [of them]."
The video is part of a right-wing viral video craze Martsinkevich started called "Occupy Pedophilia," which lures young gay men in chatrooms into what they think will be sexual encounters with teenagers. (It also has a spinoff, "Occupy Gerontophilia," aimed at older men). In the video, Martsinkevich confronts an Iraqi man expecting to have sex with a boy whom Martsinkevich says is 15 years old. He disrupts the Iraqi man in the middle of a shower, shaves his head in a reverse mohawk, paints a rainbow on his head and a star on his chest, and forces him to make a "confession." Martsinkevich is also seen brandishing a police baton before the video cuts to a screen saying "No To Violence" while the Iraqi man's bloodcurdling screams are heard.
