Italy's first transgender MP arrested in Sochi for carrying 'Gay is OK' rainbow flag

Vladimir Luxuria, the first transgender MP of any European country, was taken into police custody shortly after posing for a photograph at the Olympic site holding a rainbow umbrella and fan.

‘In your face Putin!’ she wrote on Twitter as she posted the picture.The actor and gay activist was referring to a controversial law by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s which criminalises the promotion of homosexuality.Miss Luxuria, who lives exclusively as a woman but has not undergone a sex change, was subjected to a ‘brutal and aggressive' arrest by Russian officers on Sunday as she queued to buy tickets for a hockey match.Imma Battaglia, head of Italy's Gay Project action group, said: 'I have just received a phone call from Vladimir Luxuria. She has been arrested in Sochi as she attended the Games with a flag written in Russian "It’s OK to be gay".'The arrest by the agents was brutal and aggressive. No one spoke English. She now finds herself alone in a room with neon lights shone into her face presumably in a state of arrest.’After a swift diplomatic intervention by the Italian government the popular TV personality was freed overnight and vowed to return to the Olympic site.A spokesman for Italy’s Foreign Ministry said: ‘Our team worked for her freedom from the very first moment. She was released within 24 hours.’ She was not injured or threatened by the Russian police, the Ministry said.The popular TV personality, who was an MP in the 2006 Prodi government, was in Russia to interview members of the Italian Olympic team.Miss Luxuria had earlier declared her intention to protest against the law by wearing drag to an Olympic hockey match to be attended by her namesake Vladimir Putin.She told Italian news agency ANSA she wanted to attend the Russia match on Tuesday night at the Bolshoi Ice Dom ‘as I’m dressed now: long skirt, earrings, bracelets and fan in all the colours of the rainbow.‘I am a living rainbow, these are the colours of my team,’ she declared.‘My protest is against an absurd law that prohibits the promotion of homosexuality wherever there are children as a pretext for not talking about homosexuality.‘And I find unacceptable the equating of homosexuality with paedophilia, which is not a sexual orientation but an aberration.'Senator Sergio Lo Giudice, said: ‘The arrest of the ex-parliamentarian demonstrates all the hypocrisy of Putin and his regime.’Nichi Vendola, leader of Italy's left wing SEL party, tweeted: 'Rebel freely without fear of the moral police. Thank you Vladimir Luxuria.'(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az