New wave of persecution against homosexuals in Chechnya

About forty people are arrested, both men and women. At least two have been tortured to death. The detainees are held illegally detained in Argun, says Igor Kotjetkov, who leads the LGBT set, an organisation for sexual minorities in Russia. Kotjetkov alarms in Novaya Gazeta.

In april 2017, reported Novaya Gazeta for the first time on a förföljelsevåg against gays in Chechnya. The chechen authorities denied categorically the information and claimed, inter alia, that there are no chechen gay. DN interviewed chechens who feared for their lives in the shelters in Moscow.

DN:s sources the continued persecution throughout the 2017. Now a new wave has begun.

" the Police will do everything to prevent them from travelling out of Russia, or take the case to the right. They get by with their id proof, the police threaten them with the fact that they or their relatives be brought to trial for fabricated crimes, " says Kotjekov to DN.

Now spread the warnings along the secret network in Chechnya, the authorities have started with the new republic. The chechen authorities are calling the warnings ”misinformation”, according to Novaya Gazeta.

and cooperation (OSCE) gave at the end of last year issued a report which affirms that the chechen authorities persecute gay people. The human rights situation is in accordance with both the OSCE and Amnesty for all the criticism in Chechnya, an autonomous republic within Russia which is ruled with an iron fist by the autocratic Ramzan Kadyrov. Under Kadyrov, who has introduced the religious rules in Chechnya, have been countless cases of illegal arrests, ill-treatment and torture have been documented. The Russian human rights organization Memorial's last employees in Chechnya, Ojub Titijev, is in prison since a year back.