Rsia's LGBT 'Concentratn Camps': Prisons For Gay Men In Chechnya, Reports Say

Contents:

• RSIA'S LGBT 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS': PRISONS FOR GAY MEN IN CHECHNYA, REPORTS SAY
• GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG
• MORE THAN 100 GAY MEN 'SENT TO PRISON MPS' CHECHNYA
• ‘THEY STARVE YOU. THEY SHOCK YOU’: INSI THE ANTI-GAY POGROM CHECHNYA
• GAY CHECHENS REPORT DAYS OF BEATGS AND ELECTRO-SHOCK TORTURE AT HANDS OF RSIAN ERNMENT-BACKED THUGS
• REPORTS OF ‘NCENTRATN MPS’ AND TORTURE FOR GAY MEN RSIA
• GAY MEN ARE BEG HELD IN CONCENTRATN CAMPS IN CHECHNYA
• ALLEGED GAY 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN CHECHNYA SPARK GLOBAL OUTRAGE
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

RSIA'S LGBT 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS': PRISONS FOR GAY MEN IN CHECHNYA, REPORTS SAY

The allegatns me after a few eyewns and survivors said terviews wh the Rsian publitn that they were arrted and taed at one of the secret prisons Argun, a town the Chechen Republic, 100 gay men have been reportedly taed and at least three killed the past week Chechnya by the police.

The "ncentratn mps" are beg ed to force homosexuals to m that they would leave the republic, acrdg to Novaya Is Vlence Agast LGBT Communy Increasg Unr Tmp Admistratn? The officials Chechnya started torturg the homosexuals after a Rsia-based NGO for LGBT rights — — applied for a gay rights march the pal of Grozny, reports said. Meanwhile, Chechen’s Print Ramzan Kadyrov, who is a key ally of Rsian Print Vladimir Put, has been acced of settg up the mps to torture gay people.

This terview troduc the work of acclaimed historian Dan Healey, who sheds light on how gay men survived the Soviet Gulag, their life afterwards and different attus the USSR to gay men and Healey, Profsor of Morn Rsian History at Oxford Universy, has explored the history of homosexualy tsarist and Soviet Rsia, the nature of masculy unr socialism, the problems of sexual disorrs and sexual vlence the USSR and the history of medice Stal’s Gulag.

GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG

Healey is the thor of the only published monograph on the history of homosexualy Rsia: Homosexual Dire Revolutnary Rsia: The Regulatn of Sexual and Genr Gkov spoke to Dan Healey after the lnch of his latt book: Rsian Homophobia om Stal to do we know about gay/queer people Gulag?

MORE THAN 100 GAY MEN 'SENT TO PRISON MPS' CHECHNYA

We know om FSB archiv and publicly accsible urt papers that homosexual mat of the Gulag were generally men aged between 25 and 50, most of them urban dwellers. That giv you a kd of snapshot of the posn of the group of people imprisoned for their homosexualy unr Article 154-a of the RSFSR Penal relatns between men were punishable by imprisonment of between three and five years, and sexual relatns between men wh the e of vlence or the subjugatn of one party to the other were punishable by imprisonment of between five and eight subjects of your book were not only people arrted unr Article 154-a.

Dan Healey's latt book: Rsian Homophobia om Stal to the first place, we need to be reful when we talk about what meant to be a homosexual the Gulag.

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

We don’t know for certa whether the prisoners analysed were actually gay or lbian, or whether they jt acmodated themselv to a particular culture. Soviet lears feared that homosexual groups uld make a pact wh Germany or other powers to stabilise the n, however, offer a circumstantial explanatn about the polil nature of the cisn.

It’s known that 1933 Genrikh Yagoda, the head of the Soviet secret police, wrote a letter to Stal which he said that “homosexuals are beg arrted, but we have realised that we don’t have an article to charge them unr.

Also, “outg”, the public disclosure of rmatn about gays’ sexual orientatn, uld, an atmosphere of public homophobia, bee a potential risk for blackmail by foreign telligence polil terpretatn of this “crime” was the reason for the severy of sentenc unr Article 154-a, as “polils” were “socially hostile” mat the Soviet prison mp system. Homosexuals were treated even more harshly than prisoners nvicted unr Article 58 (anti-revolutnary activy), as everyone knew that “polil” charg were often fabrited. This leads to the ncln that those nvicted unr Article 154-a were the lowt of the low the prison system, although homosexual crimals were treated ls harshly, pecially unr Stal.

GAY CHECHENS REPORT DAYS OF BEATGS AND ELECTRO-SHOCK TORTURE AT HANDS OF RSIAN ERNMENT-BACKED THUGS

Homosexuals were treated even more harshly than prisoners nvicted unr Article 58 (anti-revolutnary activy)The send reason for the severy shown to gays was to do wh public homophobia. Agents of the OGPU/NKVD (as the Soviet secret police was known at different tim), the police and other bodi that alt wh the matters knew exactly what “crime” they were arrtg homosexuals for. Homosexual prisoners were huiated both physilly and psychologilly, separated om other mat, forced to e separate toilets and kchen equipment.

Here the rapist, takg the active role, was not regard as gay: he was a person assertg his power over a “grad element”. The “ordary” crimals were not ted people and had ltle sire to wre do you know about other typ of gay relatnships the Gulag?

Public ’s nearly impossible to answer the qutns, bee few even amongst the most ted of Gulag mat left any wrten documentatn behd, given the homophobia of Soviet society and the all-embracg fear the populatn. When ex-prisoners began to wre about gay relatnships the Gulag, they would always talk about them as someone else’s experience, not their own.

REPORTS OF ‘NCENTRATN MPS’ AND TORTURE FOR GAY MEN RSIA

Koz’s se is tertg bee he left a diary which he had kept all his adult life, and part of , the entri for 1955-1956, has been even Koz don’t speak about his own homosexual experienc, if he had any, the mps.

Koz was, of urse, staggered by this ankns, as his diary entry wre your book that the most open gays the mps belonged to the “crimal” populatn. This wasn’t a universal suatn, but was pretty gay men and lbians hold hands, for example, whout anyone botherg about ?

GAY MEN ARE BEG HELD IN CONCENTRATN CAMPS IN CHECHNYA

The younger partner a male gay relatnship would sometim bee more feme and even take a female name, and an equivalent velopment might take place a lbian society bee more homophobic after the Gulag was closed down? I noticed that the Lengrad regn, people realised that some of their neighbours were gay relatnships but paid no attentn to : was jt other people’s private liv. After 1953, the year of Stal’s ath, doctors and people the Gulag admistratn started talkg openly about the issue at var people punished for havg gay relatnships the Gulag?

One famo se was that of filmmaker Sergey Paradjanov, who was arrted and imprisoned several tim for his homosexualy, the first time ’s well known that there were gays and bisexuals the polil and cultural el of the Stal era.

Metropole Hotel, where he lived, and which was of urse a rels thg to there any evince of workers, peasants and other groups which were not part of the telligentsia beg punished for homosexualy? The letter seems fact to have been a piece of provotn on the part of the OGPU, signed to jtify arrtg gays the terts of natnal another letter to Stal, the OGPU proposed more severe sentenc for public exprsns of homosexualy and for payment for sex between men. One document om the Stal era (disvered by historian Ira Rolduga) talks about the fact that when 1932-1933 open gay men Lengrad suggted havg relatns wh straight men, the latter rpond wh vlence and aggrsn.

ALLEGED GAY 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN CHECHNYA SPARK GLOBAL OUTRAGE

I thk that for Stal, homosexualy was a “male” issue, nnected to natnal and his circle did not approve of women’s emancipatn: there was not a sgle woman the PolburoWomen, on the other hand, didn’t serve the armed forc and weren’t particularly active the secury ans, so they were ls of a risk. I thk that when we talk about homosexualy, and pecially when you are a foreigner, you n’t jt go to the archiv and ask for material on the subject directly. And she ed specific terms that would sound pretty homophobic to Canadian ears now: “All kds of sexual perversns would take place”, and so on.

This is a pretty wispread attu towards homosexualy among ted Soviet doctors and your rearch produce anythg surprisg or shockg, or give you any hope?

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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 emailsGay men are beg held “mps” the Chechen Republic where they are subjected to torture and beatgs, human rights mpaigners have claims follow reports last week that 100 gay men had been round up and imprisoned Chechnya, wh at least three people allegedly murred. At the time, Chechen lear Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokperson nied the claims on the grounds that no one Chechnya is homosexual.