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Seroye Fioletovoye (center, aka Oleg Vasliyev and Maria Shtern) used to belong to the Russian art group Voina, which garnered international attention with its daring antiestablishment stunts (file photo).
Seroye Fioletovoye (center, aka Oleg Vasliyev and Maria Shtern) used to belong to the Russian art group Voina, which garnered international attention with its daring antiestablishment stunts (file photo).

KYIV -- International rights groups have urged separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine to disclose the location and ensure the safety of a Russian LGBT activist and a fellow performance artist who went missing there two weeks ago.

Friends of transgender activist Seroye Fioletovoye (Gray Purple) and musician Viktoria Miroshnichenko say they have not heard from the two since they entered separatist-controlled territory on January 31.

The Kremlin-loyal tabloid news outlet Life News on February 13 cited an unidentified source with the separatists as saying that the two were detained because Fioletovoye had planned to stage a protest in support of sexual minorities in a separatist-held area of Donetsk.

There has been no formal confirmation of that claim, and Amnesty International said in a February 13 statement that it has "serious concerns" about the safety of the two Russians.

The international rights group published a petition calling on separatist leaders to reveal the location of the two Russians and protect them from "physical and psychological" abuse.

Russia-backed separatists control areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine's east nearly three years after the start of their war against Kyiv's forces that has killed more than 9,750 people.

International rights watchdogs and Western governments have repeatedly accused the separatists of illegal detentions and abuses, including torture.

Fioletovoye, who was born Oleg Vasliyev and also goes by the name Maria Shtern, is a former member of the Russian art group Voina, which drew international attention with its daring antigovernment stunts and spawned the dissident art collective Pussy Riot.

The activist typically uses "it" in self-reference, and rights advocates became increasingly concerned after a February 9 update appeared on Fioletovoye's Twitter feed referring to the activist as male.

Two tweets from the account of Seroye Fioletovoye that use a different personal pronoun to refer to the missing LGBT activist.
Two tweets from the account of Seroye Fioletovoye that use a different personal pronoun to refer to the missing LGBT activist.



The tweet was subsequently deleted and replaced with a new post consistent with the activist's typical gender identification.

"Friends, I am in the far-flung regions of the DNR," the tweet reads, using an acronym used by the separatists that stands for Donetsk People's Republic.

"I am busy with a film. There is almost no Internet. I'm alive and well," it continued.

The Twitter feed had been dormant since August, and the sudden tweet has raised suspicions that the activist was not the person who posted it.

"It was very, very creepy, and very concerning, too," Tanya Cooper, a Ukraine researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL.

Miroshnichenko is a musician who previously collaborated with Fioletovoye. She staged a performance-art piece at a 2013 event related to LGBT issues that Fioletovoye moderated.

In her most recent Facebook post -- on January 31 -- Miroshnichenko wrote that she would be online infrequently until February 15. She added in a comment to the post that she was traveling to the southern Russian region of Rostov, which borders the Donetsk region.

Human Rights Watch said in a February 10 statement that it feared the two had become the victims of "forced disappearance."

"Their disappearance demands an immediate and effective investigation," Cooper said in the statement.

Based on reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv and Carl Schreck in Washington
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (file photo)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (file photo)

The United Nations chief says Islamophobia is fueling terrorism and global tensions, amid a rise in anti-immigrant policies in some countries around the world.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the remarks on February 12 as he met in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia's king and other officials.

"One of the things that fuel terrorism is the expression in some parts of the world of Islamophobic feelings and Islamophobic policies and Islamophobic hate speeches," Guterres said.

"This is sometimes the best support that [Islamic State] can have to make its own propaganda," he said at a joint news conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

Among the European countries seeing an uptick in anti-immigrant rhetoric is France, where right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen is a leading presidential contender.

In the United States, President Donald Trump's executive order last month sharply restricted immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters

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"Watchdog" is a blog with a singular mission -- to monitor the latest developments concerning human rights, civil society, and press freedom. We'll pay particular attention to reports concerning countries in RFE/RL's broadcast region.

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