Wed, Jan 16, 2019 page6

• Two gays killed, 40 detained in Chechnya purge

  CRACKDOWN: The abuse of gay men and women never stopped — only the scale of the persecution has changed, an LGBT network program director reported

  • AP, MOSCOW
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  The Russian republic of Chechnya has launched a crackdown on gay people in which at least two people have died and about 40 people have been detained, LGBT advocates said on Monday.

  The allegations come after reports in 2017 of more than 100 gay men being arrested and subjected to torture, and some of them killed, in the predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia.

  Reporters have interviewed some of the victims, who spoke about torture at the hands of Chechen police.

  

  Anzor, a gay man, speaks to reporters on condition of anonimity out of fear for his safety in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia, on April 28, 2017.

  Photo: AP

  Chechen authorities have denied the accusations and federal authorities conducted a probe into the earlier reports, but said they found nothing to support the charges.

  Alvi Karimov, a spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, told the Interfax news agency that the reports are “complete lies and don’t have an ounce of truth in them.”

  Karimov said that that no one has been detained in Chechnya on suspicion of being gay.

  However, the Russian LGBT Network, which has been monitoring the situation in Chechnya and helping victims, said in a statement that about 40 men and women have been detained on suspicion of being gay since last month and that at least two of them have died of torture in detention.

  The detainees are reportedly being held at the same facility that was named in the 2017 reports.

  “Widespread detentions, torture and killings of gay people have resumed in Chechnya,” network program director Igor Kochetkov said. “Persecution of men and women suspected of being gay never stopped. It’s only that its scale has been changing.”

  The new wave of persecution started at the end of the year, when Chechen authorities detained the administrator of a social media group popular with LGBT people in North Caucasus, Kochetkov said.

  The mass detentions began after authorities got hold of the contacts on his phone, Kochetkov said.

  LGBT activists in 2017 helped to evacuate about 150 gay men from Chechnya to help them restart their lives elsewhere in Russia. Many of them have sought asylum and resettled abroad.

  “News that the authorities have resumed the crackdown is spine-chilling,” said Marie Struthers, director of Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe section. “With lives in jeopardy, there is an urgent need for an international response to protect gay and lesbian people in Chechnya.”

  Russian authorities have denied that killings and torture took place in the region, even after one man came forward to talk about the time he spent in detention in Chechnya.

  Maxim Lapunov said he was detained by unidentified people on a street in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in 2017 and kept in custody for two weeks, where he was repeatedly beaten.

  He said he was let go after he signed a statement acknowledging that he was gay and was told he would be killed if he talked about his time in detention.

  Lapunov, who is from Siberia, was the first to file a complaint with Russian authorities over the wave of arrests of gay people.

  The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe last month called on Russia to investigate the reports and cited Lapunov’s case.

  Kadyrov and his government have been accused of widespread human rights abuses against many dissidents, not just gay men.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    TSMC and Nvidia team up on silicon photonics, CEO Jensen Huang says

  • 2

    Master sergeant killed after being sucked into engine

  • 3

    TikTok could be affecting views of young Taiwanese

  • 4

    Tourist faces a fine after being struck by a train

  • 5

    Dozens injured after quakes damage buildings