LGTBI people are being detained and tortured in Chechnya again
GAYLES.TV.- The information that comes to us from Chechnya they are chilling: dozens of detainees in detention centers and two homosexuals killed as a result of the torture inflicted on them.
Amnesty International (AI) It has officially confirmed the existence of this new purge and has attacked the Chechen authorities and the Russian federal government. Marie Struthers, director of the Eastern European section for AI has declared “The news that the Chechen authorities have resumed raids (of gays) is chilling. (…) Given that lives are in danger, there is an urgent need for an international response to protect gays and lesbians in Chechnya ”.
The response of Government of Grozny has been to qualify the accusations of "Fantasies worthy of a novel about the adventures of homosexuals who for some reason prefer to be oppressed". Pure cynicism to face an evidence that cries out to Europe while, for its part, Moscow is silent.
The alarms jumped at the report of the NGO LGBT Network, based in St. Petersburg, about the detention of at least 40 people who were transferred to an internment center in Argún and the death of two of them. Igor Kochetkow, one of the people in charge of this organization, affirms that it is completely "impossible" specify the actual number of victims of this new campaign against LGTBI people. "We know that around 40 people have been arrested, both men and women; at least two arrested have been killed as a result of the torture; we also know that the arrests are being carried out by law enforcement agencies, and that the victims are imprisoned in Argún. ".
The history of the repression of homosexuals in Chechnya is not new and like a couple of years ago, the police have resorted to social networks to identify the detainees. Given the prevailing homophobia in the country, gays and lesbians usually use all kinds of networks to contact each other. The purge started with the arrest of the administrator of a group in VKontakte, Russian version of Facebook, from there the arrests went chain.
El European Parliament, after reviewing the reports of this new round of homophobic repression in the Muslim-majority region, has urged Russia to investigate allegations about "Monstrous tortures" of detainees. The information always arrives mediatized given that the Chechen police withdrew identity documents to the detained persons to avoid their escape from the country and the search for protection abroad.
Source: elperiodico.com, es.euronews.com
Photographer: AFP, Reuters
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