The Gay Men Who Fled Chechnya’s Purge | The New Yorker

Contents:

• 2 GAY MEN WHO FLED CHECHNYA WERE ABDUCTED AND FORCIBLY SENT BACK
• 'ANY DAY YOU N BE TAKEN': INSI WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY CHECHNYA
• JOURNALIST WHO UNVERED CHECHNYA’S ANTI-GAY PURGE ATTACKED
• NO END TO CHECHNYA’S VLENT ANTI-GAY CAMPAIGN
• ‘THEY STARVE YOU. THEY SHOCK YOU’: INSI THE ANTI-GAY POGROM CHECHNYA
• RSIA: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN CHECHNYA
• WELE TO CHECHNYA: THE HARROWG FILM ABOUT THE REGIME'S GAY PURGE
• CHECHEN LEAR: NO GAYS HERE – BUT IF THERE ARE, TAKE THEM AWAY
• RAMZAN KADYROV SAYS THERE ARE NO GAY MEN CHECHNYA — AND IF THERE ARE ANY, THEY SHOULD MOVE TO CANADA
• A VICTIM OF THE ANTI-GAY PURGE CHECHNYA SPEAKS OUT: 'THE TTH EXISTS'
• CHECHNYA’S HORRIFIC ‘GAY PURGE’: A 4-YEAR TIMELE OF ABDUCTN, TORTURE AND MURR
• CHECHNYA IS TRYG TO EXTERMATE GAY PEOPLE. OUR SILENCE ONLY EMBOLNS VLADIMIR PUT AND RAMZAN KADYROV.
• THE GAY MEN WHO FLED CHECHNYA’S PURGE

2 GAY MEN WHO FLED CHECHNYA WERE ABDUCTED AND FORCIBLY SENT BACK

"Ricky's oral was mid-2018 and was a faiar early 2017, the world had beme aware of reports that Chechen thori were roundg up and torturg dozens of men they spected of beg gay, what me to be known as a "gay purge". The nam of most of those terviewed have been changed at their requt out of ncern the Chechen thori or their fai might harm acunts pat a picture of a place where there is now virtually no space to be gay, where datg rri potentially lethal nsequenc and the supprsn of their inty is obligatory for LGBT people. He has done that, g allegedly savage methods, and the procs Kadyrov has remolled Chechnya around himself, erectg a police state and a cult of personaly built around an obssive machismo centered on sport, particularly martial the majory-Mlim regn, wh a eply nservative culture, beg gay was never accepted.

"In 2017, that nservative hostily to homosexualy seemed to nvert to anised terror, part of a broar nservative mpaign that has also targeted dg and alhol Dzhabrailov, 27, only the send man to e forward publicly about his tentn 2017, told ABC News that armed police took him om the hair salon where he was workg. For 14 days, he said, he was held a basement wh several other gay men, taken out for torture ssns, where he was electrocuted and subjected to a mock Dzhabrailov tells ABC News'' Jam Longman the torture and terrogatn he says he endured at the hands of Chechen News"They put me on the wall, put bag on my head, " he remembered.

'ANY DAY YOU N BE TAKEN': INSI WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY CHECHNYA

Aluadov, who was also sanctned 2013 by the Uned Stat over the same se as Ddov, claimed the gay men allegg torture were simply seekg asylum the Wt or that they themselv were likely not Chechens. Insi, Aluadov showed the reporters the empty cells, which were clean and looked rarely ed, as though mostly sisted he uldn't nceive how a Chechen man uld be gay and said was not him but Chechen society that will not tolerate gay men.

JOURNALIST WHO UNVERED CHECHNYA’S ANTI-GAY PURGE ATTACKED

Victims have repeatedly scribed beg hand back over to their fai wh a suggtn that they kill them themselv and many of speakg anonymoly said they feared their relativ would harm them if they found such circumstanc, discsg homosexualy, let alone g out is impossible.

NO END TO CHECHNYA’S VLENT ANTI-GAY CAMPAIGN

He eventually sought asylum , a bisexual man livg the neighborg republic of Dagtan, where attus are very siar to Chechnya, had a wife and a 1-year-old baby when he said his life was men lured him to an apartment where they beat him and forced him to adm he was gay on mera.

'It’s harr for women bee they n’t leave'Many LGBT Chechens lk the eptn of more systematic vlence the past few years to a worseng atmosphere of homophobia Rsia, signaled by the passg of the notor so-lled "anti-gay propaganda" law law, which effectively banned public displays of homosexualy, has been cricized by rights groups as green-lightg discrimatn and vlence agast LGBT over Rsia, gay people reported creased hostily. Milasha also faced tense backlash and threats 2017 after first breakg the news of the Chechen ernment’s crackdown on men and women who were eher gay or genr-nonnformg the Mlim-majory regn of the Cc. Milasha ially reported on more than 100 Chechens — primarily gay men — who were arrted and taed makhift prisons and ncentratn mps, where they were often subjected to torture and asked to name other people whom they knew to be gay.

‘THEY STARVE YOU. THEY SHOCK YOU’: INSI THE ANTI-GAY POGROM CHECHNYA

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The Rsian LGBT Network has reported that May 2021, Chechen-speakg men abducted Ibragim Selimkhanov Mosw and forcibly returned him to Chechnya’s pal Grozny, where thori terrogated him about gay people the regn.

RSIA: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN CHECHNYA

But for the young man who lls himself Maksim, as for sr of other gay men arrted a pogrom this month Rsia’s Chechnya regn, pivoted to nearly two weeks of beatgs and said had started wh a chat room nversatn wh “a very good old iend who is also gay, ” and who suggted that they meet at an apartment. Kadyrov, is a new turn the regn’s long history of rights Gazeta, an opposn newspaper, first reported the pogrom, sayg that at least 100 gay men had been arrted and three killed the roundup.

In Chechnya, beme somethg even worse — a mass “prophylactic” cleansg of homosexuals, the secury service agents told the gay men as they round them men were held for as ltle as a day or as long as several weeks, acrdg to Human Rights Watch and to terviews wh gay men who later ped the regn. Pkov, told journalists that the Rsian thori had found no evince that the Chechen police had arrted gay quickly beme clear to Maksim and the other men that the Chechen thori were applyg the same tactics ed by Rsia and by Mr. Secury service agents took to posg as gay men lookg for dat on the Village and other chat rooms, or persuad those they had already ptured to lure acquatanc, those arrted said spread among gay Chechens.

His acunt of the ceptn ed to ta him was nsistent wh others documented by Human Rights Watch and wh the acunts of the two other gay men terviewed separately for this six of the men the apartment were transferred to a makhift cell an abandoned buildg, where they were tortured wh electricy one by one, Maksim 11 days, he was released to a male relative, who was told that Maksim was gay.

WELE TO CHECHNYA: THE HARROWG FILM ABOUT THE REGIME'S GAY PURGE

Petersburg, which has tablished an emergency, round-the-clock volunteer group to help gay men pe the reassure the victims they are tryg to help, the activists have taken extraordary preutns, operatg virtually as a partisan cell behd enemy l, though they have done nothg illegal unr Rsian law.

“The people don’t tst anybody, ” said Olga Baranova, director of the Mosw Communy Center, a support group for gays that is part of the volunteer work helpg gay men flee arrivg at the safe lotn outsi Chechnya, several young men said they had spected that the volunteer group was also a trap but had no other optn but to accept the help, Ms.

The men’s acunts are nsistent wh a crime report filed on January 29 wh Rsia’s chief vtigative agency by the Rsian LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr) Network, a proment LGBT rights group, which stated that December and January, police Grozny, Chechnya’s pal, round up and abed 14 men. “There wasn’t anythg remotely remblg an effective vtigatn to the anti-gay purge of 2017, when Chechen police round up and tortured dozens of men they spected of beg gay, ” said Rachel Denber, puty Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Two of the men whose time unlawful tentn overlapped gave closely matchg scriptns of the tentn facily, the other mat, the daily route, the police officials, and the abe flicted on prumably gay ptiv.

CHECHEN LEAR: NO GAYS HERE – BUT IF THERE ARE, TAKE THEM AWAY

Police also forced several of the prumed gay mat to clean the toilet and wash floors and doors along a rridor, makg clear to them and the other mat that the gay tae were given “women’s work” as a form of huiatn.

Activists of the Rsian LGBT Network told Human Rights Watch that based on the rmatn the work received om var sourc and cross-checked, Chechen police taed at least 23 men between December and April bee of their prumed homosexualy. In November 2018, 16 participatg stat of the Organizatn for Secury and Co-Operatn Europe (OSCE) voked the anizatn’s “Mosw Mechanism” and appoted a rapportr to look to allegatns of ab Chechnya, cludg the anti-gay purge. “Rsian thori should immediately vtigate the new wave of torture and huiatn by the Chechen police of men they believe to be gay and, fally, rry out an effective vtigatn to the purge of 2017, ” Denber said.

Current treatment only works on cells that are actively producg new viral pi, NBC News the IAS nference, scientists will hear about post-treatment ntrol of HIV fant boys, the impact of circumcisn on HIV risk gay men and the relatnship between HIV and mpox, NBC News rmatnThe U. Human RightsPeople Chechnya who are spected of beg lbian, gay or bisexual, are facg a “new wave of persecutn” followg a spate of killgs volvg torture, and other rights ab, said a group of pennt UN human rights experts on Wednday.

RAMZAN KADYROV SAYS THERE ARE NO GAY MEN CHECHNYA — AND IF THERE ARE ANY, THEY SHOULD MOVE TO CANADA

”France cid to make his film after readg a New Yorker article that scribed the heroic young activists of Rsia’s LGBT work, who smuggle gay Chechens out of the state and to safe ho Mosw or St Petersburg, then supervise their journeys out of Rsia to claim asylum. How to Survive a Plague – his first, which he later turned to an award-wng book – told the story of how a vocifero mpaign by gay activist group Act Up relentlsly phed the US medil tablishment to makg dgs available for people wh Aids.

”In some ways, the spirs of Black Liv Matter and Act Up nverge the figure of Marsha P Johnson, the black trans woman who was at the Stonewall rt 1969, which sparked the morn movement for gay rights.

A VICTIM OF THE ANTI-GAY PURGE CHECHNYA SPEAKS OUT: 'THE TTH EXISTS'

Johnson – and her Latx sikick Sylvia Rivera, who crashed the 1973 New York gay pri para to exriate s middle-class whens and sire to margalise trans people – loudly exprsed the belief that liberatn would only be possible when all LGBT people around the world were ee.

CHECHNYA’S HORRIFIC ‘GAY PURGE’: A 4-YEAR TIMELE OF ABDUCTN, TORTURE AND MURR

In an terview, Chechen lear Ramzan Kadyrov ni reports that gay men are beg taed and tortured the Rsian republic — not bee such ab would not be allowed, but bee he thks there are no gay men Chechnya.

Chechen print says there are no gay people his untry (Vio: HBO / 'Real Sports wh Bryant Gumbel')In his one-on-one terview wh Stt, Kadyrov offers what appears to be his first ments to a Wtern outlet about the reports of a gay purge Chechnya.

Allegatns about the vlence directed toward gay men Chechnya first appeared April, when the csadg Rsian newspaper Novaya Gazeta released a story cludg terviews wh men who said they had ped the vlence and wh LGBT support groups that had assisted them. Kadyrov's spokman, Alvi Karimov, appears to have preempted the thoughts of his boss, tellg Interfax that if a Chechen knew that a fay member was gay, that relative would “have sent them to where they uld never return. Kadyrov had long enjoyed the backg of Vladimir Put, wh the Rsian print allowg the warlord to le Chechnya as a virtual fiefdom as long as he kept the long-rtive regn the allegatns of persecutn agast gay men f to a broar picture of a Chechen ernment that is tertwed wh vlence.

CHECHNYA IS TRYG TO EXTERMATE GAY PEOPLE. OUR SILENCE ONLY EMBOLNS VLADIMIR PUT AND RAMZAN KADYROV.

Though the three men didn’t expla why they had e, soon beme clear, as they took Dzhabrailov’s phone, mand his password and started surg the vice for msag and photos that would prove he was guilty of somethg nsired eply shameful the nservative, predomantly Mlim republic: beg gay. ” Dzhabrailov is one of at least dozens of men who were taed and tortured an anti-gay “purge” that took place Chechnya 2017, acrdg to news reports, human rights anizatns and European agenci.

Dpe ternatnal attentn and outcry that followed the 2017 purge — cludg lls for Rsian officials to vtigate reported lawlsns and misbehavr among Chechen law enforcement — human rights anizatns say another anti-gay sweep took place late 2018 and early 2019. One ernment spokperson said wasn’t possible bee gay people “don’t exist” that part of Rsia and if they did, their own relativ would be so ashamed that they “would have sent them to where they uld never return.

THE GAY MEN WHO FLED CHECHNYA’S PURGE

Given the strength of the taboo Chechnya, beg openly gay “is simply not an optn” and “g out of the closet would be suicidal, ” says Tanya Loksha, associate director for Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia.