The chilling tale of a homosexual who challenges death threats to testify about the Chechen hell
GAYLES.TV.- The Russian Maxim Lapunov has decided to challenge the security forces of Chechnya denouncing the massive persecution of gays in the Caucasian republic and the tortures to which they are subjected and that he suffered in his own skin.
Last Tuesday at a press conference Ígor Kochetkov, Director of the Russian LGBT Network, acknowledged that, "Until now, the main argument of the authorities to refuse to investigate was the absence of testimonies. Well now they have the first witness. " And at a very high price, because Maxim remembers the last words they said when they released him: "They warned me that if I denounced what happened, I would have a bad time. They would find me, they would initiate a criminal case, they would judge me and they would send me to prison. Or they would simply retaliate against me or against my family. "
That was the icing on hell that started in a shopping mall Grozni the March 16 of this year when Maxim was arrested and transferred to an internment center where he was held for almost two weeks. In statements to the Newspaper Nóvaya Gazeta, Lapunov explained that already in the first interrogation he was accused of having moved to Chechnya to "seduce Chechen boys" and forced him to identify other gays with whom he had maintained relations.
Always according to his testimony, Maxim was transferred to a basement soaked in blood and there they were beating him with rubber bars while his torturers shouted to him: "There should be no people like you in the world, you are not even a human being." Between beating and beating, Maxim recalls that "All the time I was in the basement they brought new detainees continually. I heard how they beat them. I understood from the conversations that they were all suspected of being homosexuals "and added that sometimes the guards used electric shooters to start confessions to detainees.
When he was finally released "I could hardly walk" but in spite of his precarious state of health, he was forced to record a video confession in which he acknowledged having maintained relations with homosexuals. He was then forced to put his fingerprints on a pistol and was handed 100 € and a bus ticket to Piatigorsk to make him disappear.
The serious threats that he made to him and his family members make him worthy of admiration because it takes a lot of courage to take the step of denouncing. Lapunov, who hails from the Siberian city of Omsk, has stated that he is willing to return to Grozny, the Chechen capital, to identify those who tortured him and help locate the secret prisons where homosexuals have been imprisoned and tortured for months.
What led Maxim Lapunov to speak in public was the fact that, after filing a formal complaint with the Russian Training Committee on his arrest and torture, received no response from the Russian authorities.
His courage may encourage other gays who have gone through the same situation to denounce it and undoubtedly, will contribute decisively to investigate and try to stop the genocide perpetrated daily in Chechnya against the LGTBI collective.
Sources: last hourinfobae.com,
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