Dozens of riot police broke up a gay rights demonstration today before the Eurovision Song Contest final in Moscow, grabbing protesters and throwing them into police cars and a waiting bus.
Those arrested for taking part in the small demonstration, which had been banned by city authorities, included British and Russian campaigners.
"There is no freedom for gays in Russia," British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell shouted as police bundled him away. "We call on President [Dmitry] Medvedev to meet with us."
Police pushed waiting reporters away as they arrested the gay and lesbian participants, but there were no beatings.
Among those detained was Nikolai Alexeyev, a Russian gay rights leader. Alexeyev was walking with a person wearing women's clothes, and police said they were arresting him for walking with a transvestite.
Plain-clothes policemen briefly halted a convoy of cars with gay and lesbian protesters before the demonstration, according to a Reuters reporter.
Gay activists in Russia say they are fighting for their constitutional rights in a deeply intolerant society and compare their plight to that of gays in Western Europe last century.
"The plight of gays in Russia now is similar to Britain in the 1970s except that the state authorities here are far more oppressive," Mr Tatchell told Reuters before the protest.
The protest was timed to coincide with the Eurovision contest, where singers from 42 European nations compete to win one of the continent's most lucrative and watched television events, to attract publicity to the fate of gays in Russia.
Russian nationalists had threatened "to cure" any homosexuals who tried to come onto the streets in Moscow and one gay man was hit several times by an anti-gay activist at a separate small gathering this afternoon at Pushkin Square, down the road from the Kremlin.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has taken a hard line against homosexual protesters, once describing a gay rights parade as "satanic".
Reuters