Gay
men are disappearing in Chechnya, according to a human rights activist
and a leading opposition newspaper in Russia. Some are being detained;
the fate of others is unknown, human rights groups say.
The newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, reported at the weekend
that the men were detained "in connection with their non-traditional
sexual orientation, or suspicion of such," citing Russian federal law
enforcement officials.
Novaya
Gazeta reported that more than 100 gay men had been detained in the
last two weeks and said it had the names of three who had been murdered.
CNN has not been able to
independently confirm the newspaper's reporting. But Ekaterina
Sokirianskaia, Russia project director of the International Crisis Group,
told CNN that in the last 10 days she had received information from
multiple sources in Chechnya about the detention of gay men, including a
hairdresser as well as cultural and religious figures.
Sokirianskaia,
a Moscow-based expert on the Caucasus region that includes the Russian
republic of Chechnya, said the volume of information made it "almost
impossible to believe this is not happening, but it is also very
difficult to verify because Chechen society is extremely homophobic."
She said it was unclear what had triggered the apparent anti-gay campaign.
Sokirianskaia at the
International Crisis Group said honor killings still happened in
Chechnya, and gay men would get no protection from their families, who
would see them as a source of shame.
But she said some gay men had left Chechnya and were now beginning to tell their stories to gay rights groups.
She
said there was no gay 'community' as such in Chechnya. Small groups
would connect by phone but ran the risk of discovery because of the
monitoring of calls by the Chechen security services.
Gay individuals lived, Sokirianskaia said, in a climate of fear, paranoid about being discovered.
Even
human rights officials in Chechnya are unsympathetic on LGBT issues.
Heda Saratova, head of the Human Rights Council in Chechnya, dismissed
the article in Novaya Gazeta as "spitting into our face, our traditions,
our customs."
Saratova
told CNN by phone that "even if people with non-traditional sexual
orientation are present in our society, no one would ever know about
this. They [gay rights groups] say that they want to hold gay parades
here, this is just absurd."
Ramzan
Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya since 2004, has stifled any form of
dissent, subduing the separatist movement that fought the Russian army
for nearly two decades.
In 2009, Kadyrov said in a
newspaper interview that "Prostitution, drugs and gays are the poison of
our time. How can Russia support gay clubs?"
"There
is a whole system aimed at weakening the country, the will, honor, and
spirit," Kadyrov said of what he considered vices.
He has also spoken favorably of polygamy.
Kadyrov posts social media videos of himself working out and offered to raise a volunteer force to send to Syria to fight on behalf of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
LGBT groups across Russia say they are frequently discriminated against, and several of their rallies have been attacked and broken up.
In
2013, Putin signed a law that barred public discussion of gay rights
and relationships anywhere that children might hear it. The law has been
condemned by Russian and international rights groups.
Human
Rights Watch described the anti-gay propaganda law as "a profoundly
discriminatory and dangerous bill that is bound to worsen homophobia in
Russia."
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