The LGBT activist group Queer Nation sounded off against Russia's anti-gay laws and the International Olympic Committee's seeming lack of concern, by staging a demonstration outside the Russian consulate in New York City today.

While protestors shouted and waved placards declaring "Gay bashing is not an Olympic sport," three demonstrators in Putin masks poured fake blood on a flag bearing the iconic Olympic rings.

Queer Nation's Ken Kidd explains:

We've focused on the IOC and how holding the Olympics in Sochi goes against everything in its charter... We've focused on NBC and major Olympic sponsors like Coke and McDonald's, who pay lip service to equality while profiting from inequality and ignoring Putin’s human rights atrocities.

Now we're once again laying our message right on Putin's doorstep. The whole world is watching, literally. Putin can't hide his pogrom behind the sports page.

Among the protesters were gay Russians seeking asylum in the U.S., as well as members of the ex-pat group RUSA LGBT, students from Queens College, and members of Judson Memorial Church.

Russia's war on human rights has come into focus even more as we count down the days until the Sochi Games begin: Wednesday night, two formerly jailed members of Pussy Riot were introduced by Madonna at an Amnesty International concert in Brooklyn. The same day, the documentary Hunted  brought brutal images of Russian homophobes beating—and in some cases, torturing—members of the gay community, into British homes.

“The Russian government is on notice that the start of the Olympics is not the end of this fight," said Queer Nation's Scott Wooledge. "Overturning these laws and ensuring the rights of LGBT Russians is the only way for Putin to begin to repair that damage to his reputation on the world stage the passage of these laws has done."

View Queer Nation's video of the protest, below.

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