When Press Is The Best Protection

Masha Gessen feels that the American gay rights movement failed the Russian LGBT activists who protested during the games:

These brave Russian activists came out to protest because they thought that the eyes of the world were fixed on them that day and that their American activist allies in Sochi would support them by word and deed, staging their own protests and ensuring that the thousands of international correspondents in Sochi would hear of their protest and the treatment they faced. They were wrong. Their American allies watched the opening ceremony, socialized with Team U.S.A., and visited the famed Sochi gay bar. Their American allies failed them.

Why the lack of publicity matters:

First and foremost, working with LGBTQ activists in Russia has to involve ensuring that their names and their individual arrests and court hearings are well-publicized in the Western media. It also means ensuring that their fines are paid: The point of those extremely high fines is to open the way for further prosecution for nonpayment. Only if Russian authorities know that the world is watching the specific individuals they are targeting will the LGBT activists on the ground be relatively safe—which is to say, alive and unlikely to face long prison sentences in the near future.