BY CIARAN SNEDDON (MP)

 

A leading gay rights campaigner and former Italian MP has been arrested following a peaceful protest at the Sochi Winter Olympics.

 

Vladimir Luxuria, who was dressed in rainbow colours and carrying a banner reading “Gay is OK”, was taken away by four unidentified men as she tried to enter the ice hockey arena at the Games.

 

The transgender activist was put into a car marked with official Olympic logos, in one of several controversial moments of the weeks-long sporting event.

 

The International Olympics Committee defended their removal of Ms Luxuria, saying it had been peaceful and adding that she had not been detained.

 

She was Europe’s first openly transgender parliamentarian when she was voted in to the Italian chamber of deputies.

 

The Sochi Winter Olympics were expected to be targeted by gay activists following recent legislation in Russia which banned the use of ‘gay propaganda’. The new laws prevent activists from providing information about homosexuality to anyone under the age of 18 in the country.

 

The bill, whilst gaining heavy support in Russia, has attracted criticism from the international community, and there had been calls from several leading figures for there to be a boycott of the Games.

 

Stephen Fry wrote an open letter to David Cameron last year which detailed why he thought the Games should be cancelled.

 

In it he wrote: “An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 in Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillehammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world.

 

“I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler’s anti-Semitism. Every time in Russia (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian “correctively” raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.

 

”Despite Russian president Vladimir Putin releasing several human rights figures prior to the games in an attempt to boost the country’s equality record, there have been several incidents throughout the games.

 

Controversial band Pussy Riot were arrested and beat up by police officers after attempting to film an anti-Putin music video in the streets of Sochi, just months after they were released.