A respected Russian newspaper says it has uncovered information that police in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya have rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three have been killed.
The Saturday report in Novaya Gazeta said it had confirmed the information with sources in the Chechen police and government, but gave no details. The report says that authorities have set up several camps where homosexuals are killed or forced to promise to leave the republic. The report is by an author who is regarded as a leading authority on Chechnya and it claims that those detained include well-known local television celebrities and religious leaders.
Svetlana Zakharova, from the Russian LGBT Network, told the Daily Mail:
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 all together, around 30 or 40. They are tortured with electric currents and heavily beaten, sometimes to death," Zakharova added.
One of those who escaped told Novaya Gazeta that prisoners were beaten to force them to reveal other members of the gay community.
Alexander Artemyev, from Amnesty International in Russia, told the Daily Mail:
We can only call on the Russian authorities to investigate the allegations. Homosexuals in Chechnya are treated very harshly and prosecuted daily and they are afraid to talk about it.
According to sources, President Razman Kadyrov allegedly ordered the clampdown, although officially his regime denied the arrests.
Kadyrov's spokesman suggested there are no homosexuals in the Muslim-majority region. Ali Karimov said, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti:
It’s impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic.
According to The Guardian, he added:
If there were such people in Chechnya, the law-enforcement organs wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning.
The Guardian report also says that a spokesperson for the region’s interior ministry called the report “an April fool’s joke” in a statement to the Russian newspaper RBC.
The Kremlin-backed Kadyrov is widely accused of extensive human rights violations. He has brought Islam to the fore of Chechnya's daily life, including opening what is called Europe's biggest mosque.
(With inputs from AP, IANS and The Guardian)
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