Yelena Grigoryeva, an activist for the St. Petersburg-based Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT People for Equal Rights, was killed on the evening of July 21. Grigoryeva had participated in a number of the Alliance’s protests and initiatives as well as other anti-war and pro-democracy projects around St. Petersburg.
According to human rights activist Dinar Idrisov and the Russian LGBT Network, Grigoryeva had received multiple death threats both on- and offline. Idrisov said that Grigoryeva and her attorney reported both the threats and physical violence that followed to local police, who displayed “no noticeable reaction” to her reports.
A murder case was reportedly opened shortly after Grigoryeva’s body was found on the evening of July 21, but whether her death will be investigated as a hate crime is not yet clear.