The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures…. ICE agents don’t get to kidnap someone, from a coffee shop parking lot, without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process…. Holding someone against their will while refusing to tell them why, or denying them access to contact anyone, is a constitutional violation

Virtual Ministry Archive

A 37-year-old man in Russia just got seven years in prison. His crime was owning a gay bar. Vyacheslav Khasanov ran "Pose", a club in the city of Orenburg. The court also jailed his manager, Diana Kamilyanova, for six years and three months, and the club's 23-year-old art director, Alexander Klimov, for two years and three months. All three denied the charges. This is the first criminal case brought under Russia's 2023 ruling that branded the "international LGBT movement" - a group that does not actually exist - as extremist. Pose opened in 2021, and as the crackdown tightened, the team tried to survive by rebranding it as a "parody bar theatre." It didn't save them. In March 2024, police, the National Guard, and a nationalist group raided the venue. Footage showed patrons standing with their hands in the air while officers seized the wigs and costumes. Rights lawyers say the verdict sets a precedent, and they fear it will erase the last safe spaces queer people in the country have left