Tag Archives: Chechnya

Chechnya General Who Led Country’s “Gay Purge” KILLED in Ukraine War.

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It has been reported that Chechen general Magomed Tusayan was killed on Saturday during fighting in the Ukraine. . Tusayan was responsible for leading the anti-gay purge in that country that led to torturing and murdering of hundreds of gay men and other memeber of the LBT community.

Both the Pakistani Times and a defense reporter for The Kyiv Independent, confirmed: “Magomed Tushayev, one of Ramzan Kadyrov’s top warlords, has been killed in action in Hostomel. Ukraine’s elite Alpha Group is reportedly fighting Chechens in the airfield.”

Since 2017, Chechen security operatives and other officials in the Kadyrov regime, including Tushayev sources confirmed, have rounded up countless numbers of men on suspicion of being gay, held them in unofficial detention facilities for days, humiliated, starved and tortured, and in some cases murdered them in what is dubbed Chechnya’s ‘anti-gay purge,”

One former detainee said that the torturers showed him a graphic video of a suspected terrorist having a plastic pipe inserted into his anus and then barbed wire forced into the pipe and ripped out of his rectum. The torturers videotaped the torture, showed it to a gay man and revealed that they had brought a similar plastic pipe and barb wire to use on him. The man then confessed, revealing his gay associates to avoid a similar fate.

Russian singer Zelimkhan Bakaev  an early victim was arrested, tortured, and murdered by Chechen authorities due to suspicion of homosexuality.”

His body has still not been found.

The United States FINALLY Publicly Condemns Chechnya's Deadly Gay Purge And It Only Took 3 Years

The United States FINALLY Publicly Condemns Chechnya’s Deadly Gay Purge And It Only Took 3 Years

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It may have taken over 3 years but the United States Government has FINALLY publicly condemned Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov for the horrific human rights abuses against gay/bi men and lesbians that have left many jailed, tortured, and murdered.

Today, the Department of State is publicly designating Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation, under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2020.  This designation is due to Kadyrov’s involvement in gross violations of human rights in the Chechen Republic.  The Department has extensive credible information that Kadyrov is responsible for numerous gross violations of human rights dating back more than a decade, including torture and extrajudicial killings….

Today’s action serves to notify Mr. Kadyrov that his involvement in gross violations of human rights has consequences, both for him and his family, and that the United States is committed to using all the tools at our disposal to ensure accountability for those who engage in this abhorrent behavior

In 2018 the United States Congress did pass a bipartisan resolution condemning the anti-gay persecution and violence in Chechnya but the Trump administration has remained silent on the human rights violations and while countries like Canada and the Netherlands have granted asylum to the persecuted LGBT refugees, the United States has not.

Chechnya's Murderous Anti-Gay Purge Leader Gets COVID-19

Chechnya’s Murderous Anti-Gay Purge Leader Gets COVID-19

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Via ABC News:

Russian state news agencies have reported that Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian leader of Russia’s southern region of Chechnya, has been transported to a Moscow hospital with suspected COVID-19 symptoms.

“Ramzan Kadyrov has been flown to Moscow with suspected coronavirus. He is currently being monitored by doctors,” an unidentified source in the Moscow medical community told Tass agency, adding that Kadyrov’s condition is “stable.”

Kadyrov, 43, has run predominantly Muslim Chechnya with an iron fist since 2007. The Kremlin has relied on him to keep the North Caucasus region stable after two devastating separatist wars. International rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s feared security forces of extrajudicial killings, torture and abductions of dissenters

Since 2007,. Kadyrov’s rule has been characterised by high-level corruption, a poor human rights record, widespread use of torture, the murder of homosexuals and a growing cult of personality.

Since 2017, Kadyrov has led a murderous campaign against Chechen gays and lesbians saying that gays are “inhuman devils” and that Chechnya must “purify our blood” of their presence. At least 100 gay men are believed to have been tortured and a unknown killed by Kadyrov’s vigilantes including Chechen pop star Zelimkhan Bakaev.

Thoughts and prayers you murderous motherfucker. Thoughts and prayers.

More Gay Men Arrested, Detained, and Tortured in Chechnya

More Gay Men Arrested, Detained, and Tortured in Chechnya

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In the past year and a half over 100 gay men in Chechnya were arrested and subjected to torture, and some of them were killed. Now new reports of arrests and detainment’s are coming to light.

Prominent activist Igor Kochetkov told The Associated Press on Friday that gay rights supporters have seen a spike in detentions of men and women suspected of being gay since late December. Kochetkov would not say how many people have been detained or where they are now. He said the activists are preparing a short report to be released on Monday.

Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which broke the news of the crackdown in 2017, also confirmed earlier on Friday reports renewed persecutions of gay people in Chechnya.

Russian authorities kept denying that the killings and torture took place in the predominantly Muslim region where homosexuality is a taboo, 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, and kept in custody for two weeks, where he was repeatedly beaten. He was let go after he signed a statement acknowledging he was gay and was told he would be killed if he talked about his time in detention.

Chechen authorities have used electrocution, beatings, starvation, dehydration, isolation, forced nudity, homophobic insults to get the men to reveal more suspected homosexuals. Authorities confiscate all personal belongings and don’t allow the men to contact anyone or to sleep.

One former detainee said that the torturers showed him a graphic video of a suspected terrorist having a plastic pipe inserted into his anus and then barbed wire forced into the pipe and ripped out of his rectum. The torturers videotaped the torture, showed it to a gay man and revealed that they had brought a similar plastic pipe and barb wire to use on him. The man then confessed, revealing his gay associates to avoid a similar fate.

Chechnya Ramps Up Gay Concentration Camp Pogram, 100 Detained and 3 Dead

Chechnya Ramps Up Gay Concentration Camp Pogram, 100 Detained and 3 Dead

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Reports have emerged this week that Chechnya has ramped up its anti-gay pogram and that 100 gay men were detained and three killed in these camps last week.

Novoya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian politics and social affairs, said that several new camps have been set up in Chechnya where gay men have been forced to promise to leave the republic.

The most recent report in Novoya Gazeta said that those arrested include well-known local television personalities and religious figures.

Svetlana Zakharova, from the Russian LGBT Network:

“Gay people have been detained and rounded up and we are working to evacuate people from the camps and some have now left the region.”

“Those who have escaped said they are detained in the same room and people are kept altogether, around 30 or 40. They are tortured with electric currents and heavily beaten, sometimes to death.”

A prisoner who escaped told Novoya Gazeta that prisoners were beaten to force them to reveal other members of the gay community. Another said that before being incarcerated in one of the camps he survived by bribing Chechen police thousands of rubles every month in order to survive.

Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, Russia project director for the International Crisis Group, says: “The story is very much developing…victims are escaping. It is difficult to overstate just how vulnerable LGBT people are in Chechnya, where homophobia is intense and rampant. LGBT people are in danger not only of persecution by the authorities but also of falling victim to “honour killings” by their own relatives for tarnishing family honour,”

Last year Russian singer Zelimkhan Bakaev was arrested, tortured, and murdered by by Chechen authorities due to suspicion of homosexuality.”

His body has still not been found.

 

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Russia Claims It Can’t Find Any Evidence of Chechnya's ‘gay purge’

Russia Claims It Can’t Find Any Evidence of Chechnya’s ‘gay purge’

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Russia’s justice minister Alexander Konovalov told United Nations representatives on Monday that the countries investigation of the “gay purge” in Chechnya had turned up no evidence to support the claim.

Speaking before the UN’s Human Rights Council, Konovalov said officials had taken the allegations seriously and looked into them.

“The investigation showed that there were not any such incidents,” he said.

“There weren’t even representatives of LGBTI in Chechnya. We weren’t able to find anyone.”

LGBT groups claimed that at least 200 gay people were held in secret prisons where they were tortured and beaten. At least 26 were said to have been killed. Among those missing and presumed dead is Russian pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev, who went missing in August 2017.

The news of these crimes against humanity were initially reported in of April 2017 in Novaya Gazeta, a Russian-newspaper, which reported that over 100 men had allegedly been detained and tortured and at least three had died in an extrajudicial killing. The paper, citing its sources in the Chechen special services, called the wave of detentions a “prophylactic sweep”. The journalist who first reported on the subject has gone into hiding. and there were calls for reprisals against journalists who report on the situation.

The Chechen police and military conducted entrapment schemes, in which a victim is lured on a date, beaten and humiliated. A recording is produced, and blackmail money is solicited in return for silence. Law enforcement agencies in Chechnya already keep lists of “suspects”. According to a source from Radio Liberty, raids on gays began in December 2016, subsided briefly, and resumed on a large scale in February 2017. The first gay men who were detained via entrapment were tortured in attempts to reveal the names of their acquaintances.

According to escapees interviewed in the Novaya Gazeta and the British-owned The Guardian, 30 to 40 people are detained in one room (two to three meters big), and often kept for months on end without trial. Witnesses report they are also beaten (with polypropylene pipes below the waist), and tortured with electricity. In addition to physical torture, individuals report being mocked, humiliated and insulted, as well as being forced to clean the prison and spat in the face. In some cases the process of torture ended in the death of the person being tortured.

Canada, Germany, France and Belgium are among countries to have granted asylum to gay Chechens on the basis that they would have faced persecution and possibly death if they stayed.

 

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Terrifying Russia Website Challenges Users To Hunt Down and Torture Gay Men

Terrifying Russia Website Challenges Users To Hunt Down and Torture Gay Men

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A new terrifying Russian website known as ‘Saw’ in English, is encouraging people to ‘report and hunt down ’ gay men. The website .proclaims that the campaign represents the “Chechnya’s Comeback”, referring to the government-sanctioned brutal torture and executions of gay men in the Northern Caucasus.

Following the launch of the website last week, three men have been violently assaulted.

The website allows people to upload photos of people they accuse of being gay with personal information and how to find them.

The website states that it  plans  to make a database of people of gay people, including their addresses and other information.

People will then be able to access the names for a fee: 200 Rubles (US $3) to find personal information. But if your name is on the database and you want to have it removed, you have to pay a bigger fee: 1500 Rubles (US $23).

“Saw’ supposedly takes its name from the horror movie franchise of the same name.

The targeting of LGBT people is called a ‘game’ on the website. It has May 1 to 31 listed as the dates for the ‘game’.

For now, the ‘game’ is targeting people in the province of Ufa, in south-east Russia.

This is terrifying,’ Mikhail Tumasov, chairperson of the Russia LGBT Network said..

‘I’ve never seen anything like this The killing and torturing of gay people, they call it a game.’

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Befriends Anti-Gay Murdering Chechnya Leader Ramzan Kadyrov – Video

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Boxer Floyd Mayweather Befriends Anti-Gay Murdering Chechnya Leader Ramzan Kadyrov - Video

 

Via TMZ:

Floyd Mayweather has a new member of The Money Team — Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov … an alleged violent warlord who unapologetically hates gay people.

Floyd met up with Kadyrov during a recent trip to Chechnya — buddying up with Kadyrov and urging his fans to follow Ramzan on Instagram.

Ramzan is responsible for the horrible anti-gay purge in Chechnya that has led to hundreds of gay men being held in detention, being  tortured, and executions his country.

When HBO’s Real Sports recently went to Chechnya to report on the country’s  Mixed Martial Arts program this is Kadyrov replied when asked about the “gay purge”: 

“This is nonsense. We don’t have those kinds of people here. We don’t have any gays. If there are any take them to Canada. Praise be to God. Take them far from us so we don’t have them at home. To purify our blood, if there are any here take them.

“They are devils. They are for sale. They are not people. God damn them for what they are accusing us of. They will have to answer to the Almighty for this.”

In June the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution condemning the violence and persecution against gay men in Chechnya, On October 30, 2017 the U.S. Senate followed suit.

S. Res. 211 “calls on Chechen officials to immediately cease the abduction, detention, and torture of individuals on the basis of their actual or suspected sexual orientation, and hold accountable all those involved in perpetrating such abuses.” It also calls on the U.S. government to “continue to condemn the violence and persecution in Chechnya.”

 The Canadian federal government has been secretly spiriting gay Chechen men from Russia to Canada, under a clandestine program.  About a third of those who were being sheltered in Russian safe houses – are now in Toronto and other Canadian cities

Sources estimate that Chechen authorities have rounded up and detained, tortured and in some cases have murdered  hundreds of gay men in secret prisons including the recent revelation that Russian pop-singer  Zelimkhan Bakaev was arrested, tortured and then murdered for being gay. 

His body at the writing of this post  has still not been found.

 

 

 

 

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Gay Chechnya Refugee Who Disappeared For Months Now Claims Anti-Gay Purge Is A Lie

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A gay male refugee from Chechnya has gone on state TV months after mysteriously disappearing to say sorry for being a ‘disgrace’ to the republic for claiming that he had been threatened and blackmailed in Chechnya after coming out as gay.

The story of Movsar Eskerhanov began when the kidnappers forced the young man to confess to sexual orientation in the camera due to the fact that Eskerhanov could not pay them 200 thousand rubles, which the criminals requested for not showing the video to anyone.  The kidnappers posted the video and the young man was forced to flee in Stavropol Krai, and then in Moscow. Eskerhanov later went to Germany to request political asylum because of the history

Movsar Eskerhanov told TIME magazine earlier this year that he feared for his life in the country which has arrested and tortured over 200 people have this year alone for being gay with some other men missing to never be seen again and who are presumed dead.

Eskerhanov remained at a German refugee camp where other Chechens recognized him and attacked him.

Later he was refused asylum by the German government.

Not long after that Eskerhanov mysteriously disappeared for months until earlier this week, when he resurfaced on state television for an investigation by Chechen government-controlled news network Grozny on the countries anti-gay purge.

Suddenly, Eskerhanov claims that he was set up by the media and framed to say he was gay before claiming that his coming out was made under the effects of epilepsy medication.

He said: “They disgraced me before the Chechen people and the Chechen leader, I was framed. That’s why I apologize to the residents of Chechnya, the leadership of Chechnya, the Chechens living in the North Caucasus and Europe.”

Chechens who criticize the republic’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, are routinely forced to give televised apologies, leading many to surmise that Eskerhanov disappearance was in fact a reprogramming  detention with torture and threats and that his apology was coerced and  that he is doing it to keep his family safe and himself alive.

Below is the recently aired interview in its original language.  If anyone can translate it please post in the comment section below.

 

 

 

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Russia Claims It Can’t Find Any Evidence of Chechnya's ‘gay purge’

Voices4Chechnya Protests Russian Consulate in NYC Demands Answers About Missing Chechen Pop Star Zelimkhan Bakaev

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On Tuesday, November 7th, the group Voices For Chechnya protested outside the Russian Consulate in NYC, demanding  an immediate investigation into the disappearance of Chechen pop star Zelimkhan Bakaev.

As reported here last month multiple sources claim that Russian singer Zelimkhan Bakaev was arrested, tortured, and murdered by by Chechen authorities due to suspicion of homosexuality.”

Bakaev was last seen on August 8 in Grozny, where he had come from Moscow for his sister’s wedding and has not been seen since.

Via Press Release:

Voices 4 Chechnya’s action began at Central Park where they marched to the Russian Consulate on 91st Street at 1pm. Approximately 50 activists assembled outside the consulate. Voices 4 Chechnya activists held large signs with portraits of Zelimkhan Bakaev, as well as a banner which asked, “Where is Zelimkhan Bakaev?” Chants included “No Murder, No Hate, Russia Investigate, Gays In Chechnya Can Not Wait” and “When Gay Chechens Are Under Attack, What Do We Do, Stand Up Fight Back”.

Voices 4 Chechnya believes that non-violent, direct action activism is integral to the fight for human dignity and equality for all. And everyone, no matter who they are or whom they love, is entitled to live without fear. We will not stand by as the Chechen Republic orders and encourages the capture, torture, and death of its own LGBTQ+ people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Since you’re here …

We have a favor to ask. Unlike many other LGBT blogs and news sites, we haven’t installed intrusive ads– nor do we follow the typical LGBT media PR stream. We want to keep our journalism and historical reporting as open and honest as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. Back2Stonewall’s independent voice takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce most of which comes from out own pockets.  We do it because we believe our perspective and integrity matters.

If you can please help us with a small donation to cover the sites expenses and evolution it would be greatly appreciated.  Just go to our GoFundMe page by CLICKING HERE. 

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