Chechens tell of prison beatgs and electric shocks anti-gay purge: ‘They lled animals’ | Chechnya | The Guardian

Contents:

• INSI THE CHECHEN PRISON WHERE GAY MEN SAY THEY WERE TORTURED
• CHECHENS TELL OF PRISON BEATGS AND ELECTRIC SHOCKS ANTI-GAY PURGE: ‘THEY LLED ANIMALS’
• INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR
• CHECHNYA GAY PURGE: FOOTAGE TAKEN SI PRISON SHOWS WHERE MEN WERE 'TAED AND TORTURED'
• BEG GAY AN EGYPTIAN PRISON: PREPARE FOR A LIFE OF TORTURE AND ABE
• THE GRIM TTH OF BEG GAY PRISON
• AFTER 22 YEARS OF 'PSYCHOLOGIL TORTURE' IN SOLARY CONFEMENT, ANTHONY GAY FIGHTS FOR STATE LAW RTRICTG ITS USE
• HOLN WHE, GAY TEEN TORTURED ON GRDR DATE, SEEKS HATE CRIME CHARG
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• NEO-NAZI WHO TORTURED GAY PEOPLE VIRAL VIOS DI PRISON OF SUICI

INSI THE CHECHEN PRISON WHERE GAY MEN SAY THEY WERE TORTURED

If he managed not to scream, others would jo , beatg him wh woon sticks or metal they tortured him, the men shouted verbal abe at him for beg gay, and mand to know the nam of other gay men he knew Chechnya.

“Sometim they were tryg to get rmatn om me; other tim they were jt amg themselv, ” he said, speakg about the oral he unrwent jt a month ago wh some ’s ttimony, as well as that of another gay Chechen man wh whom the Guardian spoke, backs up reports that a shockg anti-gay mpaign is unr way the Rsian republic of Chechnya, volvg over a hundred and possibly several hundred men. A siar “mop-up” mpaign by ernmental secury forc took place towns across the Kochetkov, a gay rights activist om St Petersburg, has helped anise an emergency ntact centre which gay people Chechnya n reach out to securely to get help wh evacuatn.

CHECHENS TELL OF PRISON BEATGS AND ELECTRIC SHOCKS ANTI-GAY PURGE: ‘THEY LLED ANIMALS’

Photograph: Dmry Astakhov/AFP/Getty ImagJournalists at the Rsian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which first reported the story, say they have ntrovertible evince that at least three gay men have been killed sce the operatn started, and believe the full ath toll uld be much higher. There were six people wag for him, some of them uniform, and they shouted that they knew he was first, Adam nied , but when beme clear the men had read msag he had sent to others, he admted he was ed gay.

”Detae held multiple lotns have reported siar stori of beatgs and electric-shock ptors seized mobile phon om the prisoners, scrollg through their ntacts and mandg to know which men among them were also gay.

INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR

He is no longer ntact wh fay Karimov, spokman for Kadyrov, has nounced the reports of anti-gay operatns Chechnya as “absolute li and disrmatn”, sistg that there are no gay people Chechnya to round up.

”Put’s spokman Dmry Pkov said he had no rmatn about the allegatns and advised those wh plats to ntact thori: an unlikely reurse given the thori themselv are Chechnya’s ultra-tradnal society, based on strong s of fay and clan allegiance as well as Islamic fah, havg a gay relative is seen as a sta on the entire extend fay.

His first date wh a man end disaster, when the other man rmed on him to the turned out that Akhmed’s date had himself been prevly “ught”, and was workg to intify and out other gay men return for the police not tellg his fay. ’”Human rights activists are attemptg to get dozens of gay Chechens out of Rsia, as they believe the men are not safe om potential reprisals om Chechen thori or their own relativ even Mosw or other Rsian ci.

CHECHNYA GAY PURGE: FOOTAGE TAKEN SI PRISON SHOWS WHERE MEN WERE 'TAED AND TORTURED'

However, the Foreign Office referred a qutn about whether Bra would agree to give refuge to any of the men on the n to the Home has personally heard other stori of torture and seen photographs of torture-flicted wounds sent by other gay Chechen men who managed to pe, but the fate of the majory of men is simply unknown, due to the extreme of silence, and the shame of the fai. (Beit) – Egyptian police and Natnal Secury Agency officers arbrarily arrt lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) people and ta them human ndns, systematilly subject them to ill-treatment cludg torture, and often ce fellow mat to abe them, Human Rights Watch said today. Human rights groups have documented wi-sle ab the wake of a September 2017 ncert by the Lebane band Mashrou’ Leila, whose lead sger is openly gay and which performs songs that support sexual and genr diversy.

BEG GAY AN EGYPTIAN PRISON: PREPARE FOR A LIFE OF TORTURE AND ABE

For ee real time breakg news alerts sent straight to your box sign up to our breakg news emailsSign up to our ee breakg news emailsThe warn of a Chechen prison alleged to be one of the lotns where gay men were taed and tortured by police has claimed his officers would “not even want to touch such people” Kataev, head of the mistry of ternal affairs for the town of Argun, showed a team om Vice News around s now abandoned police facily an attempt to disprove the alleged abe of more than 100 men. Officials Chechnya, a feral subject of Rsia, have nied the reported “gay purge” and repeatedly claimed that there are no LGBT people the predomantly Mlim Saratova, Chechnya's Human Rights Commissner and ernment advisor, claimed she had seen no evince of the alleged persecutn. Intake/terrogatn roomControl center wh: full light & lor ntrol mera monorg for each cell and areasWarn's skWarn's necsati to rtra/ntrol prisonersInterrogatn chairMug shot/fgerprt areaLockers to store personal emsMetal rtrats gear wallGallery wh origal gay art by zack cell blockShower/examatn area, wh water hoseRimmg chair2 cells wh prison toilets and skMaximum secury solary cell (double door)Padd and soundproofed cellWall & ground attachment pots throughoutDungeon space*Entry area wh gear lockers and gear wallDungeon bed by wh tegrated St.

“Egyptian police and Natnal Secury Agency officers arbrarily arrt lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) people and ta them human ndns, systematilly subject them to ill-treatment cludg torture, and often ce fellow mat to abe them, ” HRW wrote. Banng the entry of any magaz or televisn channels that nta sexual imag or moviObservg the behavr of the prisoners the ward when talkg and walkg, and reportg any vlatnForbiddg more than one male or female prisoner to s or sleep on one bed throughout the dayPreventg the lights beg turned off at night the cell or the ward, orr to ensure that no sexual terurse tak place between male or female prisoners while the rt of their lleagu sleepThe thori punish those who are proven to have had a homosexual relatnship or have a tenncy to do so, whether a male or female prisoner, several ways, the most proment of which are:Severe beatg – disciplary cell – sleepg the bathroom – portg om prison what is known as “alienatn”.

In 1984, when Calv Burde was awag sentencg for allegedly stabbg his gay lover to ath, the prosecutg attorney enuraged the jury his closg remarks to award Burde the ath penalty, rather than life prison, on the grounds that sendg a gay man to prison was ak to sendg a kid to a ndy store. His ath sentence was later overturned (mostly bee Burde's public fenr had slept through much of his trial), but the homophobic thkg – that prison is some kd of paradise for gay men – lgers realy of life prison for homosexuals and transgenr dividuals do not appear to reflect this myth.

THE GRIM TTH OF BEG GAY PRISON

His acunt suggts that far om beg a paradise, prison for gay men n be a livg days of his first enterg prison, the 23-year-old Rodney claimed he was the victim of three separate sexual asslts, volvg five different mat.

The prison he was first sent to did actually have a separate tier for gay mat, but acrdg to Rodney, bee he did not "appear overly effemate" durg his classifitn, he was placed wh the general populatn; and bee was supposedly rare to have a gay person slip through the cracks of the system, his fellow mat took full advantage. It's difficult to asss how typil Rodney's prison experience is, but numero studi nducted by the Bure of Jtice Statistics, based on anonymo mate surveys, have shown that gay and transgenr mat are among the most targeted groups for sexual victimizatn. Jt Detentn Internatnal (JDI), an anizatn whose aim is to eradite prison rape (pdf), is tryg to change has been workg wh the California Department of Correctns and Rehabilatn (CDCR) to tablish "sensive needs yards" (pdf), where gay, transgenr and other vulnerable mat n serve out their time safety.

A teenager who was horrifilly tortured after meetg someone on gay datg app Grdr has reunted the oral as he prs for hate crime Whe, then 18, was throttled, had his wrists cut and neck sliced a bathtub of bloody water June 2020. Lafayette Police Department said they are not vtigatg the cint as a hate crime, but Whe and his fay say the attack was homophobilly pot to a Facebook acunt, purportedly belongg to Sene, that featur a profile picture of Jefey Dahmer, the nnibal serial killer who murred 16 men and boys om 1978 to 1991, as evince. Fally, 1936 SS lear and Chief of the German Police Herich Himmler tablished the Reich Central Office for the Combatg of Homosexualy and Abortn (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung r Homosexualät und r Abtreibung).

AFTER 22 YEARS OF 'PSYCHOLOGIL TORTURE' IN SOLARY CONFEMENT, ANTHONY GAY FIGHTS FOR STATE LAW RTRICTG ITS USE

Maxim Martskevich, the 36-year-old Neo-Nazi founr of Occupy Pedophilia, a Rsian vigilante group that tortured spected gay teenagers on vio, has reportedly mted suici while servg a 10-year prison sentence Siberia for an unrelated vlent offense, acrdg to the Mosw Tim. Through Format 18, he allegedly arranged the productn and sale of vios showg immigrants beg 2013, Martskevich beme famo amongst the Wtern LGBTQ muny for his vios associated wh Occupy Pedophilia, his group that ed social media to lure gay men wh promis of sex only to rerd their huiated and physil torment on mera. In many of his vios, Martskevich and his horts punched and slapped the gay men, forced them to strip to their unrwear, shaved their heads reverse Mohawks, pated rabows the sheared strip upon their heads, forced them to hold sex toys, ma them state their full nam, had them utter self-nigratg statements like "I suck c*ck" and also forced them to drk one vio, Martskevich brandished a two-pronged fork towards a young man's eye and told him that he uld eher lose his eye or be sodomized wh the fork.

HOLN WHE, GAY TEEN TORTURED ON GRDR DATE, SEEKS HATE CRIME CHARG

One of the most popular groups had 75, 000 followers, acrdg to the Amerin tech news webse The mpaign also spawned a spoff group, Occupy Gerontophilia, which targeted young gay people acced of "prostutg" themselv to olr men.

However, nowhere is more dangero than eply relig Chechnya where fai have been known to m “honour killgs” of gay unrground purge burst to the mastream Febary when Chechen police arrted a man unr the fluence of dgs.

Drawg on Jasbir Puar’s analysis of homonatnalism the post-9/11 Uned Stat, I vtigate the Orientalist and Islamophobic disurs prent liberal and LGBTQ news articl and human rights reports rpondg to the release of torture photos om Abu Ghraib prison May 2004. The prevalence of homonatnalist, Orientalist, and Islamophobic disurs Wtern journalism and human rights reports the aftermath of Abu Ghraib monstrat a shared abily to nont the nstutive role of sexualized vlence the service of US lonial power.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

In a war promoted as the Wtern “liberatn” of women and other margalized dividuals om monolhilly opprsive Islamic cultur (Chen, 2004), imag of Amerin soldiers forcg Mlim men to strip and “simulate gay sex acts as a form of abe and huiatn” shocked the Amerin public (Dahir, 2004). In an anonymoly thored opn article LGBTQ news source The Gui June 2004, the thor ntrasts the relatively “apolil, non-nontatnal” nature of that month’s Pri celebratn and the apparent retreatg of “cr forms of homophobia” Amerin society wh the photographic evince of homophobic huiatn emergg out of Iraq (“Prisons’, ” 2004).

They nclu the article by statg that gay Amerins should reflect on the still unchallenged nature of certa “stctive notns” about homosexualy Ameri orr to “make this year's gay pri more meangful” (“Prisons’, ” 2004). Puar stat that the assumptns fed to lonial Orientalist fantasi of Mlim sexual excs and perversn, where “the proper morn gay or lbian Mlim subject is foreclosed, while the terrorist is forever queer, improperly sexual, embedd an ‘always already homosexualized populatn’” (Puar, 2017, p.

NEO-NAZI WHO TORTURED GAY PEOPLE VIRAL VIOS DI PRISON OF SUICI

The homonatnalist work performed by Wtern journalists and human rights anizatns rponse to torture at Abu Ghraib served to jtify, disavow, and exceptnalize torture, leang heavily on civilizatnal disurs to place blame on Iraqi victims for their own abe. While homonatnalism is prented by Puar as primarily wh the purview of LGBTQ Amerins, I suggt that a lack of acknowledgement of the homosexual reali of the torture by liberal journalists and human rights reports reprents a unique form of homonatnalism, siarly powerful s abily to pat a profoundly false morally and sexually exceptnal image of the Uned Stat. The prevalence of homonatnalist, Orientalist, and Islamophobic disurs Wtern journalism and human rights reports the aftermath of Abu Ghraib torture monstrat a shared abily to nont the nstutive role of sexualized vlence the service of US lonial power.

Although the acknowledgement and labelg of “gay sex” the ntext of the torture of Iraqis has been ntroversial, I view the moments of ignorg sexualy as tacly bolsterg the homonatnalist project, which part works to quell any accatns of homophobic foreign policy enacted by the US ernment. By not publicly potg out the homophobic nature of the huiatn endured by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of Amerin soldiers, the US is able to mata s image as a sexually ee and acceptg place, and therefore morally superr to a monolhilly opprsive and sexually perverse Iraq.