(Photo: Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov)
Russian campaigners have told The Daily Beast that Chechen authorities have ordered people to kill LGBT members of their own families, and have demanded ransoms for the release of detained LGBT relatives.
According to reports, at least 40 people have been arrested in the last two to three weeks, many of them tortured, in a new crackdown against LGBT people in Chechnya. Two gay men have reportedly died following torture, reports The Daily Beast.
“Chechen authorities demanded that relatives punish their gay family members by executing them,” one of the St. Petersburg volunteers for the Russian LGBT Network, who did not wish to be named, told The Daily Beast. “Several people who managed to escape have been raped with police clubs and tortured with electricity.”
The detentions were reportedly carried out by law enforcement officers in the southern city of Argun.
In response – Chechnya officials blamed the “sick imaginations” of gay people for the renewed reports of the purge
In an interview with HBO in 2017 Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said: “We don’t have any gays. And if there are some, please take them to Canada… They are devils. They are for sale. They are not people.”
Rainbow Railroad has been working with the local gay population, helping them identify safe routes for escape. See how you can help here: www.rainbowrailroad.com.
