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Gay Men Being Rounded Up & Killed In 'Prophylactic Purge' in Chechnya


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Chechen gays survive torture, flee to Moscow safe houses

NATALIYA VASILYEVA and ALEXANDER ROSLYAKOV,Associated Press 13 hours ago

 

MOSCOW (AP) — Anzor was lying on a dirty floor as a man in army boots jumped on his back. His agony worsened when his captors started torturing him with electric shocks.

"It's a feeling like they are breaking every bone of every joint in your body at the same time," he said.

Anzor is a gay man from Chechnya, the predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia where dozens of men suspected of being gay were reportedly detained and tortured, and at least three of them were allegedly killed.

After his ordeal, Anzor fled Chechnya and is now in hiding in Moscow, fearing not only for his own life but for the safety of his relatives. He spoke with The Associated Press on the condition of using only his first name.

Antipathy to homosexuality in Russia is widespread. Gay rights activists' requests to hold rallies are routinely rejected by officials and any rallies that do take place are often attacked by anti-gay thugs. But "this anti-gay purge, sanctioned by top local authorities, is unprecedented," said Tanya Lokshina, the Russia program coordinator for Human Rights Watch.

Another gay man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told the AP that he was also arrested in Chechnya and held with dozens of others.

"We were tortured every day. Beside beatings, we were beaten several times a day with polypropylene tubes. We were tortured with electricity," he said.

"For 20-30 seconds they spin the handle, you feel the electricity, then you fall down, they stop it, and then immediately you come back to consciousness and you are ready again for a new discharge," he said. "And it goes on five, six, seven times."

The abuse was first reported in April by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which said that about 100 men suspected of being gay were rounded up and tortured, and that at least three were killed.

Western governments and rights groups have urged Russian authorities to investigate.

Chechen officials vehemently deny not only the reported torture of gays, but sometimes their very existence.

"There are no homosexuals in Chechnya. You cannot detain and persecute those who do not exist," Alvi Karimov, a spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, told the Interfax news agency.

Homosexuality is a taboo in conservative Chechnya, and the gay community there was used to leading a double life — marrying, having children and hiding their sexuality from even their closest family members. The only time a gay man in Chechnya could be himself is when he met with another gay person, typically through social media, Anzor said.

"The rest of the time we are pretending," he said.

Anzor, who talked to the AP at a safe house provided by LGBT activists, fears for the lives of his family members who will become pariahs in the patriarchal Chechen society if his identity is revealed.

"Sometimes families turn away from such people, some families get rid of such people," he said of gays, a word he is visibly uncomfortable using. "I'm scared for my family, my sisters and brothers. I don't want them to suffer for me."

Anzor, in his 40s, said the ordeal began when police stopped the car in which he was riding with friends in the town of Argun. They were taken to a police station after officers found a sedative pill on one friend. Small details that Anzor didn't want to make public led the police to believe that he and one of his friends were gay, he said.

They were brutally beaten in front of the police station chief and taken to a shed. Anzor spent 10 days there.

He said the shed had dozens of men who were beaten and abused by camouflaged men. In the first few days, the beatings were so frequent that he stopped feeling any pain, Anzor said, overcome at the memory. Inmates were made to attach the clamps of electric wires to their toes and fingers — and the captors would then turn on the power.

Then the torture stopped. Several days later Anzor was taken outside and told that he was free to go — without any explanation.

He thought about going to a neighboring region and reporting his bruises and injuries at the hospital there, but got scared.

"I thought if I would go there, they would be people like that there, too," he said, laughing nervously.

The other gay man who spoke to the AP said that his ordeal began when police arrested him in a crowded place, because his number was found in the phone of another gay man arrested earlier.

He said that he believed his captors, dressed in camouflage, were abusing them one by one in a bid to find more gays.

"They were beating information out of us," he said.

The man, in his 30s, said that when the abusers lost interest in one person, the torture would stop. He was eventually freed, and like Anzor, fled Chechnya and sought shelter through LGBT activists in Moscow.

Human rights groups have previously documented torture and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by Kadyrov's security forces against opponents and Salafi Muslims. Lokshina said the methods used against gay men echo these abuses — it's "their standard toolbox," she said.

Putin last month met with Kadyrov in the Kremlin and the Chechen leader dismissed the reports.

"The so-called good people write that in our republic — I'm even ashamed to say it — people get arrested and killed," he said. Putin apparently didn't press him further.

"I'm in absolute shock. We have never seen anything like this," said Tatyana Vinnichenko, head of the Russian LGBT Network, which is aiding about 40 gay men who have fled Chechnya in recent weeks.

Vinnichenko's phones ring every few minutes as she coordinates efforts with other activists on hospital treatment, plane tickets and housing arrangements. Two of the men have already left Russia for another country which is visa-free for Russians, and two more have just received visas and should be leaving for Europe soon.

LGBT activists have been meeting with foreign diplomats, pleading that granting a visa to gay survivors of torture could be a matter of saving their lives.

Vinnichenko said, with dismay, that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has been "unwilling to engage in a dialogue on visas for the torture victims."

In Washington, the U.S. State Department told the AP that it was "unable to discuss individual cases" since visa records are confidential but added that it "categorically condemns the persecution of individuals based on their sexual orientation."

After he was released, Anzor stayed in Chechnya to tend to his ailing mother, but eventually felt compelled to leave.

"My friends, people I have socialized with were all rounded up. If they caught me again, I know for sure I would not have made it out of there alive," he said.

He told his family he was going away on business when he left for Moscow in early March and he hasn't been back since. He clings to the hope that he will be able to go home to see his mother once again — and scoffs at the Kremlin meeting between Kadyrov and Putin.

"I think Putin knows about it, he knows it even better than me — he is the president of Russia after all," he says. "I don't know why he allows all of this to happen."

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/electric-shocks-chechen-gay-men-recount-days-torture-110655458.html

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Parents of gay, bi men in Chechnya told: Kill your children or we will

Jeff Taylor

A survivor of the Chechnya prison camp describes his experiences. Screenshot, France

More survivors of the secret prisons, where LGBTQ people are tortured, humiliated, interrogated, and killed, are speaking out about the horrors going on inside Chechnya.

While Chechen officials continue to deny the reports, it is clear from accounts such as those you will see in the video below that life as an LGBTQ person in the Russian controlled region is highly dangerous. While this has long been the case, the situation has gotten worse, with an unprecedented roundup of gay and bisexual men taking place.

According to the British government, Chechnya’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov, plans to eliminate the LGBTQ community by the start of Ramadan, less than a month away.

As we previously reported, survivors have outlined abuses including electrocution and beatings, and shared that when and if they are brought back home, their families are told they should murder them in an honor killing.

Now we have a man who made it out alive sharing that sometimes families are invited to the prison sites and told to kill their relative, or else the authorities will do it themselves.

“They tell the parents to kill their child,” said the man, whose identity has been protected over fears for his safety. “They say, ‘Either you do it or we will.’ They call it, ‘Cleaning your honor with blood.'”

“They tortured a man for two weeks,” he continued. “They summoned his parents and his brothers who all came. They said to them, ‘Your son is a homosexual. Sort it out or we’ll do it ourselves.’ They replied, ‘It’s our family, we’ll do it.’ The family took him and killed him in the forest. They buried him there. They didn’t even give him a funeral.”

The man said that if he were to go home, he believes his family would do likewise, leaving him to suffer the same fate.

“We’ve always been persecuted, but never like this,” the man said. “Now they arrest everyone. They kill people. They do whatever they want. They know that nobody will come after them. Because the order has come from above to ‘cleanse the nation’ of people like us.”

 

 

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/05/parents-gay-bi-men-chechnya-told-kill-children-will/

 

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2 hours ago, Martin B. said:

There is no word to describe the disgust I feel when reading this article ... :imsad:

I know.  Absolutely disgusting and terrifying.  Completely Sickening. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Maybe the Christian Churches and other faith communities have issued a statement about this, but to date, I haven't seen one, not one single one! This is NOT an acceptable prejudice.

Thanks to Corrymeela for making this statement. We can depend on Corrymeela to stand up and speak out.

The German government has spoken to Putin, for what that is worth. The UK has followed suit. Has the EU said anything?

http://www.corrymeela.org/news/77/on-the-situation-in-chechnya

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Russian singer allegedly tortured and killed as part of Chechnya’s antigay pogrom

Derek de Koff

bakaev.jpg

Russian singer Zelimkhan Bakaev was allegedly arrested and tortured to death by authorities in Chechnya due to “suspicions of homosexuality.”

He was last seen August 8th in Grozny, the Chechen capital, where he’d come from Moscow to attend his sister’s wedding. However, family members were unable to contact him and couldn’t obtain answers from authorities as to his whereabouts.

Following his disappearance, Igor Kochetkov, founder of the Russian LGBT Network, said “we received confirmation of our earlier presumption that Bakaev was detained by Chechen authorities due to suspicion of homosexuality.”

His Instagram account has also been deleted. A Twitter account in his name exists but hasn’t been updated recently.

Sources claim the 26-year-old performer “arrived in Grozny and was picked up by police within three hours.”

“Within ten hours he was murdered.”

Last week, Maxim Lapunov came forward to openly discuss his abuse at the hands of Chechen authorities. “The only charge they made was that I am gay,” he said. “I could hardly walk. I was sure they were going to kill me, I was prepared for that.”

Kocketkov claims several other men in the entertainment industry were tortured as authorities sought information on Bakayev.

Below, Bakaev is pictured with Head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

bakaev4.jpg

 

https://www.queerty.com/russian-singer-allegedly-tortured-killed-part-chechnyas-antigay-pogrom-20171023

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55 minutes ago, runa said:

😕😕

I don't understand. I just don't understand. What does it change to their life if someone is gay? 

I think these people are using the gay "issue" to push a hateful agenda. Nothing to do with being gay itself. Let's not forget how so many people would want to bring those horrors against gay people in our western countries as well. But again it's just hate and ignorance. Pure and simple. If its not against the LGBT it's women. if it's not women it's Muslims. If it's not Muslims its immigrants. If it's not immigrants it's people from other regions or areas of the same country. If it's not those people then it's the locals who are poor or suffering drug related problems. If it's not that then it's people with a different political or social point of view. Separation, division, discrimination are becoming a fact of life more than ever. 

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2 hours ago, MeakMaker said:

I think these people are using the gay "issue" to push a hateful agenda. Nothing to do with being gay itself. Let's not forget how so many people would want to bring those horrors against gay people in our western countries as well. But again it's just hate and ignorance. Pure and simple. If its not against the LGBT it's women. if it's not women it's Muslims. If it's not Muslims its immigrants. If it's not immigrants it's people from other regions or areas of the same country. If it's not those people then it's the locals who are poor or suffering drug related problems. If it's not that then it's people with a different political or social point of view. Separation, division, discrimination are becoming a fact of life more than ever. 

 

Ignorance is our worst enemy. Education is the key. 

But as long human being will act like an animal, there's nothing we can do. 

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Zelim wasn't openly gay. We weren't friends or anything, but my impression of him is that he was really trying to get his singing career going despite so many things standing in his way. I'm not sure that drawing attention to his sexuality at this point is helping, to be honest. If he's still in one of their camps, that is.

I'm saying this because there's still hope that their source is wrong. I refuse to believe he's no longer with us. I just can't.

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ps. Something in those reports doesn't add up. He wasn't a high profile entertainer, in fact, he was going to be on Fame Academy as one of the contestants. And there was no need to torture "several men" to get to him, he wasn't hiding at all. His IG is still there too, it's just private.

With that being said, Igor Kochetkov seems to know his shit as he's been helping gay people in Checnya for a while. My Russian is so-so but I can't any statement from him at the moment. Zelim's friends seem to think he's still alive, so we shouldn't lose hope!

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