Barbie Breakout, a well-known DJ and drag queen in Berlin, has reportedly sewn her mouth shut in protest of Russia's new anti-gay laws.
The "open your mouth deutsch" protest video comes amid increased outcry over the Kremlin's latest crackdown on alternative lifestyles, with British actor Stephen Fry on Wednesday demanding a global boycott of the upcoming Olympic Games in Russia in protest.
More from GlobalPost: Stephen Fry to IOC: Putin treats gays just like Hitler treated Jews (VIDEO)
According to the Huffington Post, Breakout told Germany's Die Welt newspaper: “The pain I felt inside when I had to see in the media what is happening in Russia was greater than the physical pain of the needle."
"My partner held the camera while I did it," she said in a translation provided by Pink News, according to the Huffington Post. "But he couldn’t look."
Indecent Exposure had the following transcript of the video's voiceover message:
"Ever since Russia and Putin passed the anti-gay law, gays lesbians and their friends get publicly humialiated, beaten, encarcerated and even killed on a regular daily basis. So far our government has done nothing to prevent that. Don't let them take your voice. Speak up. Open your mouth."
Rights activists are concerned that Russia's new broadly-worded legislation effectively allows authorities to target the nation's gay, lesbian and transgendered community at will.
This has alarmed the gay rights community worldwide. Elsewhere, however, there's been cause for celebration. Thanks to recent court decisions in the United States, the Associated Press reported Thursday that some heterosexual couples who've been waiting to set a wedding date until they can be joined by their same-sex counterparts are finally able to send out invitations for their big day.
"I didn't feel right getting married if my friends couldn't," Dan McCrory of California told the AP. "I had seen their fight, had seen how much this issue meant to them."
It means a lot, as Breakout's painful video attets — watch it here, but be careful, it's pretty graphic:
open your mouth deutsch from barbie breakout on Vimeo.
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