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Chechnya: two dead and dozens held in LGBT purge, say activists
Source: The Guardian
Chechnya: two dead and dozens held in LGBT purge, say activists
Accounts echo those from 2017, when hundreds of men were rounded up and beaten
Andrew Roth in Moscow
Mon 14 Jan 2019 13.26 GMT
Two people have been killed and nearly 40 detained in a new crackdown on LGBT people in Russia’s Chechnya region, activists have said. The deaths were reportedly caused by the use of torture by police.
The reports on Monday echo those from 2017, when hundreds of gay men were rounded up by police in Chechnya and subjected to beatings and electric shocks in secret prisons, provoking international condemnation and sanctions.
If confirmed, the new detentions and killings would show that pressure on Russia and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has not dissuaded him from presiding over modern-day pogroms against LGBT people in the conservative republic.
The Russian LGBT Network, a St Petersburg-based NGO that campaigns for equal rights for sexual minorities in Russia, led an effort to evacuate LGBT people from Chechnya in 2017. The NGO maintains an extensive network of contacts among Russia’s LGBT community.
The new wave of persecution began in late December, according to the Russian LGBT Network, after an administrator for an online group for LGBT people on the social network VKontakte was detained. Police used the contacts in his phone to round up others.
-snip-
Accounts echo those from 2017, when hundreds of men were rounded up and beaten
Andrew Roth in Moscow
Mon 14 Jan 2019 13.26 GMT
Two people have been killed and nearly 40 detained in a new crackdown on LGBT people in Russia’s Chechnya region, activists have said. The deaths were reportedly caused by the use of torture by police.
The reports on Monday echo those from 2017, when hundreds of gay men were rounded up by police in Chechnya and subjected to beatings and electric shocks in secret prisons, provoking international condemnation and sanctions.
If confirmed, the new detentions and killings would show that pressure on Russia and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has not dissuaded him from presiding over modern-day pogroms against LGBT people in the conservative republic.
The Russian LGBT Network, a St Petersburg-based NGO that campaigns for equal rights for sexual minorities in Russia, led an effort to evacuate LGBT people from Chechnya in 2017. The NGO maintains an extensive network of contacts among Russia’s LGBT community.
The new wave of persecution began in late December, according to the Russian LGBT Network, after an administrator for an online group for LGBT people on the social network VKontakte was detained. Police used the contacts in his phone to round up others.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/14/chechnya-two-dead-and-dozens-held-in-lgbt-purge-reports
