Tag Archives: Crimes Against Humanity

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

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

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , ,

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.

 

*** Help support Independent LGBT media. 
Back2Stonewall.com unlike many other LGBT websites’does not allow intrusive ads or a paywalls – we want to keep our journalism as open and independent as we can.  This is important because it enables us to give a voice to the voiceless, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. Facts are sacred. So you can see why we need to ask for your help,
Please consider making a donation no matter how small to help with the upkeep and maintenance of our website and help keep independent LGBT news and history alive.  

Thank you.

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’

EXCLUSIVE, Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , ,

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.

 

**********************

 

 

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

Chechnya’s Psychotic Dictator Ramzan Kadyrov: Gays ‘Are Not People. They Are Devils” – VIDEO

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , ,

HBO Real Sports recently went to Chechnya to report on the country’s  Mixed Martial Arts program, which is a training ground for the military and somehow got an interview with its anti-gay leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Pulling no punches HBO’s David Scott questioned Kadyrov about the detention, torture, and executions of gay men in his country.

Kadyrov became irritated at the question: “Why did he come here?,” Kadyrov asked of Scott. “What’s the point of these questions?”

Kadyrov then repeated the crazy assertions that there aren’t any gays in Chechnya, but it was his extended answer that provided a blood chilling look inside the psychotic leader

“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.”

Added Kadyrov:

“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.”

 
 

Chechnya Resumes It’s Purge and Detentions of Gay Men

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , ,

 

Russian activists are claiming that Chechen authorities have re-started the arrest and detention of gay and are following-up on a earlier “gay purge” this year.

The Russian LGBT Network and says it has received more calls from Chechnya in the last 72 hours. And it says they contained credible evidence that arrests are happening again.

Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has denied that the purges have taken place. A spokesperson claimed in April that reports were ‘absolute lies and disinformation’ and there were no gay men in Chechnya.

Former detainees gave harrowing accounts of their treatment in the report.

‘It was like a chain. They get one person, go through his phone, torture him, make him name some others… In the place where I was held, we were four [gay men] at first, but several days later we were already 20.’

Igor Kochetkov of the Russian LGBT Network describes how his network sees the ‘first hand the pain and suffering’ those who have survived the ‘horrors’ are facing.

‘Russia is failing in its responsibility to allow its own citizens to live in safety and has also failed to hold anyone to account for the appalling abuses that have already taken place.

Two camps were initially reported on three months ago, based in the villages of Argun and Tsotsi-Yurt, but further investigations revealed a further four jails for gay people, bringing the total number believed to be in the Chechen Republic up to six.

European leaders Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have both raised the issue publicly during meetings with Vladimir Putin, and the UK government has also expressed concerns.

Donald Trump who met with Vladamir Putin yesterday at the G20 summit has been silent on the atrocities.

Scott “Crimes Against Humanity” Lively’s Uganda Gay Hate Case Dismissed In Federal Court

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, Gay News From Around The Globe, Religious Morons and Anti-Gay Idiots, , , ,

Scott “Crimes Against Humanity” Lively Uganda Gay Hate Case Dismissed In Federal Court

For the past two years we have heard about the case against Springfield, Massachusetts “Pastor” an anti-LGBT activist and the  “crimes against humanity” lawsuit brought against him by Ugandan human rights activists.  Lively and his virulent views about homosexuality at a 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda is widely believed to have played a role in the drafting of Uganda’s notorious “kill the gays” bill.  and was accused of collaborating with Ugandan officials to institute the death penalty for homosexuals.

Today the lawsuit was dismissed because  “based on lack of jurisdiction.”

SMUG v. Lively (Sexual Minorities Uganda’s suit against Scott Lively)

Court grants summary judgment in favor of Defendant Scott Lively, based on lack of jurisdiction. Memorandum and Order linked below

“Plaintiff has filed this lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, seeking monetary damages and injunctive relief based on Defendant’s crimes against humanity. Defendant now seeks summary judgment in his favor arguing that, on the facts of record, the ATS provides no jurisdiction over a claim for injuries — however grievous – – occurring entirely in a foreign country such as Uganda. Because the court has concluded that Defendant’s .jurisdictional argument is correct, the motion will be allowed.

“Anyone reading this memorandum should make no mistake. The question before the court is not whether Defendant’s actions in aiding and abetting efforts to demonize, intimidate, and injure LGBTI people in Uganda constitute violations of international law. They do. The much narrower and more technical question posed by Defendant’s motion is whether the limited actions taken by Defendant on American soil in pursuit of his odious campaign are sufficient to give this court jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims. Since they are not sufficient, summary judgment is appropriate for this, and only this, reason.”

In conclusion:
“For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s motion for summary· judgment (Dkt. No. 248) based on lack of jurisdiction is hereby ALLOWED. As noted, the court will decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the two purely state .law claims·. As to them, the motion for summary judgment is ALLOWED, without prejudice to re-filing in state court if Plaintiff desires. The clerk will enter judgment of dismissal. This case may now be closed.

“It is so ordered.”

Lively is president of Abiding Truth Ministries a recognized LGBT hate group and is director of Redemption Gate Mission Society, both currently based in Springfield, Mass.

In His Own Words

“Because no matter what, [homosexuality] is still abnormal, wrong, harmful and perverse.”
– Eugene Register-Guard, Nov. 1, 1992

“There is no question that homosexuality figures prominently in the history of the Holocaust. … The first years of terrorism against the Jews were carried out by the homosexuals of the SA.”
– The Pink Swastika, 1996

“It is not mere coincidence that the emperors of Rome in its horrific final days were homosexual; that Adolf Hitler’s inner circle were mostly homosexual; and that nearly all of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history were homosexual. It is not mere coincidence that America’s cultural decline parallels the rise of ‘gay rights.’”
– “Agents of the Death Agenda,” May 1996 edition of Life Advocate magazine, quoted in “Northwest Update,” Coalition for Human Dignity, June 1996.

“Homosexuality is thus biologically (and to varying degrees morally) equivalent to pedophilia, sado-masochism, bestiality and many other forms of deviant behavior.”
– “Deciphering ‘Gay’ Word-Speak and Language of Confusion,” May 2002

“Homosexuality is a personality disorder that involves various, often dangerous sexual addictions and aggressive, anti-social impulses.”
– “Letter to the Russian People,” 2007

“The gay movement is an evil institution [whose] goal is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity in which there’s no restrictions on sexual conduct except the principle of mutual choice.”
– Conference in Kampala, Uganda, March 2009

“We need to bring back public discussion of AIDS as a ‘gay’ disease, pederasty as [sic] major subculture of male homosexuality, mental health problems and domestic violence as major problems associated with lesbianism, the increasing recruitment of children into a homosexual identity through experimentation with ‘gay’ sex, etc. – all the truths we stopped telling because the other side screamed so loudly about them.”
– WorldNetDaily, September 2012

According to Lively, Putin is the world’s last hope, and other nations should follow in his footsteps by implementing more anti-LGBT laws.

 

Sir Ian McKellen Protests at Russian Embassy in London Over Chechnya “Gay Purge’

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , , ,

Openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen joined hundreds of protesters outside the Russian embassy in London to voice anger against a “purge” of gay men in Chechnya.

McKellen described it as “a matter of principle” to demonstrate outside the Kensington Gardens consulate on Friday to demand that Moscow takes decisive action against those responsible for the brutal persecution.

Despite international condemnation, Chechen and Russian authorities have denied the accusations, according to Amnesty International. A Chechen spokesman even refuted that gay people even lived in the region.

Condemning the stance of Chechen authorities on gay people, McKellen said: “It is possible to think that gay people don’t exist because gay people are so frightened that they daren’t say they exist.

“What a condemnation it is of Chechnya that its authorities should believe that there are no gay people there, and if there were they shouldn’t be – it’s absolutely appalling.

“If gay people are invisible it’s because they are frightened to be themselves and come out, so it’s a condemnation not of gay people but the society they are trying to exist in.”

“Our principles are shared across borders, and the plight of the gay men in Chechnya is the plight of gay men and women throughout Russia.”

Reading a message from the Russian LGBT network to the crowd, he said: “Right now we need you to demand justice, we need you to tell your governments to take action, we need you to accept refugees, we need you to call for a transparent and just investigation that is going to hold those responsible to account.”

After the protest, McKellen laid rainbow roses on a rainbow flag – the symbol of the LGBT movement – outside the embassy.

Newly Elected French President Emmanuel Macron Calls on Putin to Protect Gay Chechens

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , ,

Newly Elected French President Emmanuel Macron Calls on Putin to Protect Gay Chechens

French president Emmanuel Macron says he has urged Vladimir Putin to ensure that the rights of LGBT people are protected following allegations of a crackdown on gay men in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

The Russian president was in France for talks with Macron, two weeks after his election victory. Macron’s call comes after widespread reports of a brutal campaign by the authorities against gay men in Chechnya, including assaults, torture and murder.

“I emphasized to President Putin…how important it is for France to respect all people, all minorities,” Macron said during a news conference with the Russian leader.

France welcomed its first gay refugee from Chechnya on Monday. The refugee’s arrival was confirmed by Joël Deumier, president of French gay right’s group SOS Homophobie, who said more may follow in the coming days

The United States has reportedly been denying visas from gay Chechen men and women seeking escape from the anti-gay country and its current barbaric regime.

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

Speaker of Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov Oversaw Round-up and Torture of Gay Men

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , ,

 

Speaker of Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov Oversaw Round-up and Torture of Gay Men
Magomed Daudov (right) with the region’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov

Despite numerous denials by both the Chechen and Russian Government it has been revealed that the powerful speaker of the Chechen parliament Magomed Daudov personally oversaw the torture of gay men during a violent anti-gay purge in the Russian republic early this year, according to evidence presented in a new report by the Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Most of the detainees interviewed by HRW after their release said they had overheard their jailers referring to Magomed Daudov and the orders he issued about violence against gay men.

Second only to Kadyrov among powerful Chechen officials, Daudov goes by the name of “Lord” and is an easily recognizable figure. Three former detainees also told HRW they had seen him at the prisons where they were being held and tortured.

All of the victims said they had suffered repeated beatings with security officials kicking them with booted feet, hitting them with polypropylene pipes and sticks and forcing other inmates to participate in the violence.

Most of the detainees interviewed by HRW after their release said they had overheard their jailers referring to Magomed Daudov, the speaker of the Chechen parliament, and to orders he allegedly issued about violence against gay men.

Torturers also used electrocution devices to administer shocks to victims until they fainted from the pain. “When you come to your senses they start all over again,” one former detainee told HRW. “And once they’re done with you and you get your bearings, you hear other inmates screaming, and the sounds of torture are just there all day and, at some point, you start losing your mind.”

Many of those who have been released have fled Chechnya, but still face the risk of being hunted down and persecuted by Chechen law enforcers.

The Chechen parliament has once again denied the claims, saying reports about the persecution of gays in the region could not be taken seriously. “We don’t care what journalists working in Europe write about,” it said in a statement on Friday.

53 Men Arrested In Nigeria For Attending A “Gay Wedding” That Wasn’t

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , ,

53 gay men in Nigeria have been arrested  for attending an unofficial same-sex wedding, though the accused’s lawyers say they were actually at a birthday party.

The arrests happened last Saturday and occurred in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna according to the BBC News.. 

Gay rights campaigners who have been in touch with people involved in the case told the BBC’s Stephanie Hegarty in Lagos the accused were arrested at a birthday party, not a wedding.. The men were also illegally detained for 24 hours, according to the attorney. 

Maria Sjodin, deputy executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group OutRight Action International, said she believes the gay wedding story is just an “excuse” and part of the police’s attempt to “crackdown on an emerging LGBTQ movement” in Nigeria.

“Only the police claim that it was a wedding party,” she told NBC Out, adding that sources in Nigeria told her organization the event was “actually a birthday party.”

“The police are using the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act as an excuse for mass arrests, maybe even as a way to get bribes,” Sjodin said. “The Nigerian law is much more far reaching than just same-sex marriage, it really is a way to crack down on anyone advocating for human rights of LGBT people.”

The men are charged with conspiracy, unlawful assembly, and belonging to an unlawful society. Their court date is scheduled for May 8.

Homosexual acts are banned in socially conservative Nigeria and are punishable by up to 14 years in jail.

The U.S. Government has given a total of $327,992 to Nigeria in 2017.

11 Men Arrested in Senegal for ‘Homosexual Acts’ for Attending Gay Wedding

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , ,

Senegal

The AP is reporting  that 11 men have been arrested in the West African nation of Senegal, for attending a gay wedding.

Boukhari Ndiaye said the arrested were among 20 people attending a celebration of a gay marriage at a school in the town about 200 kilometers southeast of the capital, Dakar, on Friday.

He said the 11 remain at the police station. Homosexual acts are criminalized in at least 34 African countries, including Senegal, where they are punishable by up to five years prison and fines of up to $2,500.

In 2013, President Obama visited Senegal  and spoke out about the country’s criminalization of homosexuality.

Said Obama: “People should be treated equally.”

President Mack Sall of Senegal replied: “We are still not ready to decriminalize homosexuality. I’ve already said it in the past. We’re still not ready to change the law. This does not mean that we are all homophobic.

Homosexual acts are punishable by up to five years prison and fines of up to $2,500 in Senegal.

A well-known Senegalese journalist was sentenced in July to six months in prison for acts of homosexuality. Seven men were also arrested and imprisoned.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2013 that persecuted gays in Uganda, Senegal, and Sierra Leone have grounds for asylum in the European Union