Rsia: New Anti-Gay Crackdown Chechnya | Human Rights Watch

Contents:

• NO END TO CHECHNYA’S VLENT ANTI-GAY CAMPAIGN
• CHECHNYA ACCED OF 'GAY GENOCI' ICC PLAT
• CHECHNYA: ESPED GAY MEN SENT BACK BY RSIAN POLICE
• 'ANY DAY YOU N BE TAKEN': INSI WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY CHECHNYA
• ‘THEY STARVE YOU. THEY SHOCK YOU’: INSI THE ANTI-GAY POGROM CHECHNYA
• RSIA: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN CHECHNYA
• FRENCH LGBT GROUPS TAKE CHECHNYA TO COURT OVER 'GAY GENOCI'
• CHECHEN GAY MEN HOPEFUL OF FDG REFUGE FIVE UNTRI
• A VICTIM OF THE ANTI-GAY PURGE CHECHNYA SPEAKS OUT: 'THE TTH EXISTS'
• CHECHNYA ACCED OF 'GENOCI' AGAST GAY PEOPLE PLAT TO INTERNATNAL CRIMAL COURT
• MM CONMNS PERSECUTN OF GAYS CHECHNYA
• CHECHNYA’S HORRIFIC ‘GAY PURGE’: A 4-YEAR TIMELE OF ABDUCTN, TORTURE AND MURR

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. Image source, AFPImage ptn, Concern about the plight of gay men Chechnya rurfaced across Europe last month followg reports of persecutn the Rsian newspaper Novaya GazetaThree French gay rights groups have acced the Rsian republic of Chechnya of a policy of genoci towards gay people a plat filed at the Internatnal Crimal Court. Chechen officials have nied that gay people even exist the the three French groups have rejected Rsia's ternal vtigatn, and want the Internatnal Crimal Court The Hague to start work before Rsia whdraws om s jurisdictn November.

CHECHNYA ACCED OF 'GAY GENOCI' ICC PLAT

It quoted the lear of Idaho France - one of the three groups stigatg the ICC se - as sayg the urt was the only way they uld pursue their week five gay rights activists were taed Mosw as they tried to liver a petn to the office of Rsia's prosecutor said they were held bee their actn was activists said more than two ln people had signed the petn to vtigate alleged torture and tentns of gay people Chechnya. Image source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Chechnya has long been acced of persecutg sexual moriTwo gay Chechen men who fled to Rsia after allegedly beg tortured have been returned to Chechnya and are "mortal danger", a rights group Rsian LGBT Network said Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev had been seized and returned by Rsian police. The group says they were later forcibly returned to thori Chechnya, a southern republic of people and other sexual mori face systematic persecutn predomantly Mlim Chechnya, where homophobia is regn's thorarian lear, Ramzan Kadyrov, has nsistently nied allegatns of illegal tentns and human rights and other ernment officials have even suggted there are no members of the LGBT+ muny source, RtersImage ptn, Chechen lear Ramzan Kadyrov (R) has nsistently nied allegatns of human rights abDpe official nials, dozens have e forward wh allegatns that they have been taed and tortured by thori bee of their sexual Magamadov and Mr Isayev are among LGBT Network said the men had arrived at a police statn the Chechen town of Gurm on Saturday.

"They are tired and ightened, " a spokman for the group, Tim Btsvet, told AFP news the ctody of Chechen thori, the men were "mortal danger", Mr Btsvet source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Chechnya has nied the existence of gay people the regnThe group has been monorg alleged ab Chechnya sce 2017, when dozens of gay people were reportedly 2019, the group alleged a h wave of persecutn and ab, accg Chechen police of killg two people unr torture. A ernment spokman dismissed that report as "plete li" said he was subjected to torture - cludg electric shocks and ptn, 'Rlan', a gay man who says he fled: "It's the extermatn of gay men"More on this story.

CHECHNYA: ESPED GAY MEN SENT BACK BY RSIAN POLICE

"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.

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. 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.

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

RSIA: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN CHECHNYA

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. 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. 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.

FRENCH LGBT GROUPS TAKE CHECHNYA TO COURT OVER 'GAY GENOCI'

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.

Abductn-style tentns, enforced disappearanc, torture, extrajudicial executns and llective punishment practic are ed agast all manner of people whom Kadyrov brand “unsirable”: lol dissints, pennt journalists, Salafi Mlims, people who e dgs and alhol, and spected homosexuals. The send wave of anti-gay vlence was provoked by letters sent to the thori of four key Cs ci, Nalchik, Cherksk, Maykop and Stavropol by a Yekaterburg-based reprentative of LGBTQ group GayRsia. When they were ma public, a ser backlash began, promptg the “gay hunt” – which, acrdg to HRW’s terviewe, was enuraged and possibly anised by the Chechen thori, cludg the speaker of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Ddov.

CHECHEN GAY MEN HOPEFUL OF FDG REFUGE FIVE UNTRI

Proment LGBTQ activist Igor Yas, who started a petn mandg Rsia’s prosecutor general vtigate the suatn, told me that the report only repeats already known facts and poted out that Chechnya human rights vlatns go well beyond homophobia and affect the whole populatn. This view is shared by the head of Rsia’s Commtee for the Preventn of Torture, Igor Kalyap, who poted out that Chechnya, the whole populatn is fencels the face of state btaly, not jt gay men.

Rsian vtigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported allegatns April that the ernment, led by Ramzan Kadyrov, was unrtakg arbrary arrts and mass tentns of gay men the semi-tonomo Rsian a hundred men spected of beg gay have been abducted, tortured and some even killed the untry, acrdg to Amnty Internatnal. Their plat to the ICC acc the Chechen thori of adoptg a policy of genoci toward gay people, the BBC s highlighted the plat is that of a 17-year-old gay youth allegedly killed when his uncle hurled him om a nth floor wdow an attempt to prerve his fay's charg clu a claim that Print Ramzan Kadyrov has set up torture mps to extermate homosexuals.

Image source, AFPImage ptn, There has been ternatnal outcry over the reported persecutn of gay men ChechnyaDozens of gay men who fled persecutn Chechnya are hopg to fd safety a handful of untri that have volunteered to help. Its report, later backed up by activists, alleged that more than 100 victims - eher gay or jt perceived as beg gay - were beg held and tortured at a tentn centre near Argun, 20km (13 ) om the cy of Grozny.

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

Earlier this month, three French gay rights groups filed a plat at the Internatnal Crimal Court accg Chechnya of a policy of genoci towards gay ced the se of a teenaged male thrown out of a nth-storey wdow, allegedly bee of his on this story.

“People 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, ” a group of UN human rights experts wrote 2019. 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.

CHECHNYA ACCED OF 'GENOCI' AGAST GAY PEOPLE PLAT TO INTERNATNAL CRIMAL COURT

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. 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.

The iend was Viskhan, a 28-year-old who prefers to only e his first name and tells TIME through a translator that he had left the republic years earlier bee he was also persecuted for beg gay. ” Experts on LGBT rights say that lawlsns — along wh relign or nservative beliefs about genr norms — tends to be the mon thread when to intifyg plac where gay or transgenr people are most at-risk.

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 emailsChechnya has been acced of rryg out a genoci agast gay people a plat filed at the Internatnal Crimal French gay rights groups blamed the Rsian republic's lear Ramzan Kadyrov and state officials for a "wave of persecutn" Homophobie, Mose and Come Idaho France urged the ICC to vtigate the persecutn of gay men, cg the se of a teenager reportedly thrown out of a nth-floor wdow after his uncle disvered he was gay. Etienne Dhoulier, a lawyer reprentg the three gay rights groups, lled Mr Kadyrov “the archect” of a “genoci” said the Chechen lear was "the aniser of torture mps wh the sire to extermate homosexuals".

MM CONMNS PERSECUTN OF GAYS CHECHNYA

Hundreds prott at Rsian embassy over 'gay ncentratn mps' ChechnyaAlexandre Marcel, chairman of Come Idaho France, said the plat was “the only way to pursue Nazi behavur” at an ternatnal level. Rsian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported last month that thori the majory Mlim republic had round up over 100 men spected of beg gay and tortured least three of the men had been killed, the newspaper reported. 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.

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.

” Lol thori tell a news agency, “You nnot arrt or reprs people who jt don’t exist the republic, ” suggtg that Chechnya has no gay cizens, and that if did, those cizens’ relativ would have executed them unr honor killg ctoms. Amnty Internatnal lnch an “urgent actn” mpaign askg dividuals to wre to Rsian thori “urgg them to rry out prompt, effective and thorough vtigatns to the reports of abductns and killgs of men believed to be gay Chechnya and to ensure that anyone found guilty or plic such crim will be brought to jtice acrdance wh the laws of the Rsian Feratn. One of the victims of Chechnya’s gay purge, an aforementned TV journalist, has all footage of his past reportg erased by the Chechen State TV and Rad Company he worked for — “as if he simply did not exist.

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

It’s now believed that up to several hundred gay men have been round up, some killed, Chechnya, and The Guardian publish this story followg terviews wh gay men who claim they were tortured secret tentn facili.