A Victim of the Anti-Gay Purge Chechnya Is Speakg Out | Time

Contents:

• NO END TO CHECHNYA’S VLENT ANTI-GAY CAMPAIGN
• CHECHNYA IS TRYG TO EXTERMATE GAY PEOPLE. OUR SILENCE ONLY EMBOLNS VLADIMIR PUT AND RAMZAN KADYROV.
• CHECHNYA’S HORRIFIC ‘GAY PURGE’: A 4-YEAR TIMELE OF ABDUCTN, TORTURE AND MURR
• 'ANY DAY YOU N BE TAKEN': INSI WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY CHECHNYA
• ONLY FIVE UNTRI ARE HELPG GAY CHECHENS LEAVE RSIA
• A VICTIM OF THE ANTI-GAY PURGE CHECHNYA SPEAKS OUT: 'THE TTH EXISTS'

NO END TO CHECHNYA’S VLENT ANTI-GAY CAMPAIGN

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.

Activists display plards ont of the Chancellery Berl on April 30, 2017, durg a monstratn llg on the Rsian print to put an end to the persecutn of gay men Chechnya. “Wele to Chechnya: Insi the Rsian Republic’s Deadly War on Gays, ” which premiered at the Sundance Ftival January and airs on HBO next week, is one of the most harrowg films I have ever seen. “Image the 21st century, a supposedly secular untry, ” says David Isteev, at the start of this acclaimed documentary, “you have s where people are killed simply bee they are homosexual — where they are maimed, where the fai of the people are urged to kill their children and siblgs.

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

“Wele to Chechnya” follows Isteev, emergency program ordator for the Rsian LGBT Network, and his fellow activists as they risk their liv tryg to protect gay Chechens om beg targeted both by the thori and their own fai.

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

Sce 2017, there have been a seri of state-sponsored anti-gay purg across Chechnya, which hundreds of gay men have been arrted and taed secret prisons. “We documented a large-sle, vic, anti-gay purge” marked by “torture, enforced disappearanc, and extrajudicial killgs, ” Tanya Loksha, the Rsia program director at Human Rights Watch, told me a phone terview om Mosw.

For David France, the award-wng director of “Wele to Chechnya, ” mak no sense to talk of a “first” or a “send” purge, as is all part of a sgle ongog mpaign of persecutn agast gay Chechens. Like every good tyrant, Kadyrov has a list of “unsirabl” who are monized and spegoated for all of the untry’s problems — and top of his list are gay people.

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

” In recent years, he has also been “jtifyg and enuragg” so-lled honor killgs of gay Chechens by their fai while his admistratn, France explaed to me, ref to prosecute such crim. As Human Rights Watch has noted, the Rsian republic “is a highly nservative, tradnal Mlim society; homophobia is tense and rampant, and homosexualy is generally viewed as a sta on fay honor. ” Polls suggt a majory of Rsians believe gays are nspirg to “stroy” the untry’s valu, while 1  5 of them want to “elimate” gay and lbian people om Rsian society.

Then there is the global ntext: As the director, France, remd me, homosexualy remas illegal more than 70 untri across the world and is punishable by ath eight of them.

ONLY FIVE UNTRI ARE HELPG GAY CHECHENS LEAVE RSIA

Holot Memorial Mm, “an timated 100, 000 men were arrted for vlatg Nazi Germany’s law agast homosexualy, and of the, approximately 50, 000 were sentenced to prison. “If there’s no punishment, ” says an exhsted-lookg Isteev toward the end of the film, “if LGBT people are regard as subhuman, if you n do anythg to them, means that tomorrow, anyone n fd themselv the sho of gay Chechens.

Nonprof Rabow Railroad is a Canadian-headquartered group helpg LGBTQ people around the world pe persecutn and vlence, cludg assistg queer Chechens pe the terrory amid anti-gay purg.

April 1, 2021, marks four years sce the world at large was first ma aware of Chechnya’s gay purge — atroci mted agast LGBTQ people wh the Rsian republic’s borrs, a horrific, ongog stratagem of abductn, tament, torture and murr.

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

Gradually rebed by Wtern ernments over the years as first-hand acunts began to emerge, Chechnya’s gay purge has largely been ignored — if not supported through omissn — by Rsian Print Vladimir Put and his ernment. Abhorrent extrajudicial actns agast LGBTQ people did not first sprg up April of 2017; ed, lol thori excelled at blackmailg the republic’s gay muny for years prr. After weeks of verifitn, the Rsian-language newspaper shar heart-wrenchg news out of Rsia’s North Cs: More than 100 people have been taed Chechnya, all of whom are gay or spected to be.

Some of the taed were eventually released and able to flee Chechnya, while others were released only upon handg over about other gay iends and acquatanc.