(17 Feb 2014) Gay rights activists staged a sit in outside the Russian embassy in Rome on Monday, to protest the detention of an LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) rights activist at the Sochi Winter Olympics.
The protesters marched through the Italian capital with a giant rainbow coloured flag (an LGBT symbol) chanting, "Putin is a killer! Putin is a killer!"
When the police would let them get no closer to the Russian embassy, the protesters sat in the middle of the road outside and refused to move.
"We are here tonight to make them hear our voice, against Putin's anti-gay propaganda law," said Alessandra Priori, a member of Mario Mieli gay rights association.
Adding, "It is scandalous that in Europe, in 2014, there are people like Putin, and laws like this one, that was approved in Russia."
Vladimir Luxuria, a former Communist lawmaker in the Italian parliament, was detained for shouting "It's OK to be gay" in a rainbow-coloured outfit as she entered an arena to watch an Olympic hockey game.
Speaking in Sochi, Luxuria told the Associated Press she had been frightened because it was the second time she had been detained in Sochi for an infringement of Russia's anti-gay propaganda law.
Luxuria walked around the Olympic Park in Sochi for about two hours on Monday, shouting "Gay is OK" and "It's OK to be gay" in both English and Russian.
Luxuria said she was stopped by four men and then driven away by police in a car with Olympic markings.
She was then released in the countryside after the men had taken away her Olympic spectator pass.
"The first time they said 'It's OK for the first time, don't do it again for the second time.' So, this time I was a little bit afraid. But they just left me outside, in the country, there, outside (the Olympic Park) and that's it," said Luxuria.
She eventually made it back to her hotel and said she was leaving Russia on Tuesday morning.
Luxuria said she had already been detained on Sunday evening by Russian police who told her she should not wear clothes with slogans supporting gay rights.
Police denied detaining her.

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