Petition demanding that Tsilikin's murder be recognized as a hate crime

On September 29, 2016, a petition, initiated by civil activist Natalia Tsimbalova, appeared on change.org, calling on law enforcement agencies to reclassify the case of the murder of St. Petersburg journalist Dmitry Tsilikin as a hate crime against homosexuals.

Recall that the journalist was found dead in his apartment on March 31, 2016. On suspicion of inflicting at least 30 stabs on him and stealing a laptop, phone and wallet, 22-year-old student Sergei Kosyrev was detained. Later, according to media reports, the suspect actually admitted that he committed the murder because of the sexual orientation of the deceased. In publications with reference to the investigation, it was said that during interrogations, S. Kosyrev called himself a “Cleaner”, his life was a “crusade against a certain social group”, and the feeling with which he killed Tsilikin was “not hostility, as it is written in the protocol, but hatred."

Despite this, law enforcement agencies charged S. Kosyrev with domestic murder (Article 105 of the Criminal Code), and the motive of hatred, which, judging by the above, was not taken into account.

The appeal has already been signed by more than 500 people.

See the full text of the petition for details .   Sources

• Recognize Tsilikin's murder as a hate crime //change.org. 2016. September 29.