You’re a failed cold-war state with a predilection for repressing your native gay and lesbian population and you have a pesky editor of a gay website calling your government out for all its human right violations. So what do you do? Well, if you’re Belarus, you do what you do with all dissidents– draft them.

23-year-old Alexander Paluyan, the editor-in-chief of the largest and most popular LGBT website in Belarus, Gay.by, was previously excused from service for medical reasons, but has been ordered to report to the military department in Mozyr today to find out if his medical exemption is confirmed or if he will be called up to service.

Human rights groups are concerned and Sergey Androsenko spokesperson for the Belarusian Initiative for Sexual and Gender Equality says, “It is not safe for openly gay persons to be called-up for military duties”



UK Gay News has more on the situation: