A disturbing video posted online has showed Russian police parading about 11 prostitutes and their clients naked, forcing them to walk in the city centre before taking them into custody.
Generally, prostitution in Russia is illegal, but it is not a serious crime. The punishment for engaging in prostitution in Russia is a fine from $22 up to $30. However, organizing prostitution is punishable by a prison term.
In this latest incident, it is said the police raided a brothel in St Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, arresting the prostitutes and their clients. Before this, the police had raided an illegal brothel in St Petersburg’s historic Vasilyevsky Island. But those arrested there were not paraded naked.
According to media reports, the area where the prostitutes and their clients were forced to walk naked, a brothel was built in an illegal area. It was alleged that the building became responsible for a flood in the area. This is said to have infuriated residents who alerted the police.
A notorious Russian former kick-boxer and mixed martial arts fighter, Viacheslav Datsi is said to have informed the police secretly about the brothel. Acting on the intelligence provided by Datsi, the police stormed the brothel. Datsi became famous in Russia for his dramatic knock-out of the Belarusian mixed martial artist, Andrei Arlovski in 1999. Arlovski later became the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion.
Metro News reports that Datsi now calls himself Red Tarzan, and claims to have declared war on prostitution in St Petersburg. It is said he regularly urges police to raid brothels, which he has discovered in the city.
Like the Game of Thrones movie, in which Cersei Lannister was forced to do a naked walk of shame, the naked prostitutes and their clients walked on the street. They were capture on film with a phone. The video and the images show the women, and many of their clients, barefoot and trying to cover themselves with their hands. Many of them were crying as they walked naked, with the police following them.
The police kept marching them naked for several city blocks, before putting them into police cars and driving them to the police station.
An eyewitness of the incident was quoted as saying that the police burst into the building, and a little while later, left with naked and crying prostitutes.
The eyewitness also added that three of the men escaped the police through a back door, but most people at the brothel were arrested. It is believed those people arrested were not made to walk naked because when the police arrested them, they were not naked. Those who were made to walk naked are said to have been busted in the act.
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Movie? Movie? Really?
While I’m no more passionate about the legality (one way or the other) of prostitution than I would see as necessary (not much), it does seem that this particular punishment fits the crime. That is to say, if you break the law and screw for money (or pay to screw) then you will be paraded around the streets like the publicly purchasable property which you have advertised yourself to be. This is certainly cruel, but far from unjust. Just saying.
same here for the most part as i don’t really care much about the “crime” in question, either way.
as for having them walk nude through the streets however…cruel and unusual punishment you might say. yet not unfitting the “crime” in question.