Dan Choi records video inside squad car, after Moscow Pride arrest

Dan Choi was arrested this weekend in Moscow along with prominent Chicago activist, Andy Thayer, and the French founder of the International Day Against Homophobia, Louis Georges-Tin. The activists were arrested after joining the LGBT community of Moscow–in defiance of the government of Moscow–in marching for LGBT tolerance and acceptance for the sixth year in a row.

Dan Choi recorded this video from within the squad car taking the seven arrested to the police station. The activists were quickly released after tremendous media attention, and pressure from LGBT and human rights activists from around the world.

According to well-known British activist Peter Tatchell, who used his phone to record and publicize the events as they happened, neither of the organizers of the march, Nikolai Alekseev nor Nikolai Baev were arrested.

Alekseev, Russia’s top activist, who has mounted several lawsuits against the government in Moscow in the European Court of Human Rights, was imprisoned for several days, late in 2010, while boarding a plane to Geneva. Alekseev was not heard from for several days, until several text messages were sent from his phone to news agencies claiming he was seeking asylum in Belarus and was dropping his lawsuits, raising eyebrows within the activist community for the out-of-character behavior. When Alekseev resurfaced in Moscow days later, he confirmed he had not sent the text messages, nor dropped his lawsuits.

Here is the video that Dan filmed prior to the Pride march and the attack on the crowd.