Gay life Stal’s Gulag | openDemocracy

Contents:

• RSIA'S LGBT 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS': PRISONS FOR GAY MEN IN CHECHNYA, REPORTS SAY
• ‘THEY STARVE YOU. THEY SHOCK YOU’: INSI THE ANTI-GAY POGROM CHECHNYA
• REPORTS OF ‘NCENTRATN MPS’ AND TORTURE FOR GAY MEN RSIA
• GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG
• MORE THAN 100 GAY MEN 'SENT TO PRISON MPS' CHECHNYA
• RSIA: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN CHECHNYA
• RSIA ‘HAS SECRETLY OPENED NAZI-STYLE PRISONS WHERE HUNDREDS OF GAY MEN ARE HELD AND SOME MURRED,’ LOL REPORTS CLAIM
• 'HIGH SCHOOL MIL' TEASER NFIRMS LUS GRABEEL'S RYAN EVANS IS GAY WH SAME-SEX KISS
• RSIA HAS LIST OF “GAY RIGHTS ADVOT” TO “BE KILLED OR SENT TO MPS” AFTER VASN OF UKRAE, US CLAIMS
• RSIAN CONCENTRATN CAMPS: GAY MEN IMPRISONED AND TORTURED, THIS IS HOW YOU CAN HELP STOP THE ATROCI
• ALLEGED GAY 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN CHECHNYA SPARK GLOBAL OUTRAGE
• GAY MEN ARE BEG SUBJECTED TO 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN RSIA

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.

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

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. Gay men Chechnya have begun letg their onle acunts or have started fleeg the regn, acrdg to the New York Tim. 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. The victims e assumed nam their everyday followg acunt is based on terviews wh Maksim, who is his 20s, and two other gay men who were taed by Chechen secury agents. ”Neverthels, before the crackdown, gay men Chechnya uld at least lead social liv, if heavily closeted on, Maksim said.

” Hill for The New York TimThe crackdown began after GayRsia, a rights group based Mosw, applied for perms for gay pri paras the Cs regn, promptg unterprotts by relig groups, the men said. 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. Kadyrov’s spokman, Alvi Karimov, said the reports of an anti-gay pogrom had to be false bee such men did not exist Chechnya.

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

Kadyrov characterized as “libelo” news reports that the secury servic Chechnya had been persecutg gay on Thursday, Mr. 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.

”That, seems, is sentially what happened to Maksim, who had been rrpondg wh his gay acquatance for some time. 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.

GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG

’”The work bought airplane tickets for Chechen gay men, found safe ho and arranged for doctors to treat those who had been badly beaten. “Gays Chechnya and the North Cs are lethal danger, ” Igor Kochetkov, director of the Rsian LGBT Network, said a telephone terview. ”A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 13 of the New York edn wh the headle: Chechnya’s Anti-Gay Pogrom: ‘They Starve You.

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

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. 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? 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.

RSIA: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN 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. 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.

RSIA ‘HAS SECRETLY OPENED NAZI-STYLE PRISONS WHERE HUNDREDS OF GAY MEN ARE HELD AND SOME MURRED,’ LOL REPORTS CLAIM

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?

'HIGH SCHOOL MIL' TEASER NFIRMS LUS GRABEEL'S RYAN EVANS IS GAY WH SAME-SEX KISS

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.

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 ?

RSIA HAS LIST OF “GAY RIGHTS ADVOT” TO “BE KILLED OR SENT TO MPS” AFTER VASN OF UKRAE, US CLAIMS

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?

RSIAN CONCENTRATN CAMPS: GAY MEN IMPRISONED AND TORTURED, THIS IS HOW YOU CAN HELP STOP THE ATROCI

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? It is a letter wrten 1934, wh the headg: “An open letter om Mosw and Kharkiv homosexuals to Mr Mar van r Lubbe”.

ALLEGED GAY 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN CHECHNYA SPARK GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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. Also, the Soviet Secury Servic had enough on their plate whout lookg for homosexuals to there a mand om “below”? 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.

GAY MEN ARE BEG SUBJECTED TO 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN RSIA

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.

But then she said, “Nowadays, of urse, we would e a different, more posive language to scribe lbians and gay men”.