It began, Novaya Gazeta reported, after a Moscow-based gay rights group, GayRussia.ru, applied for permits to stage gay pride parades in four cities in Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, of which Chechnya is a part.

The group had not focused on the Muslim areas. It had been applying for permits for gay parades in provincial cities around Russia, and collecting the inevitable denials, in order to build a case about gay rights and freedom of assembly with the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France. It had applied to more than 90 municipal governments. Nikolai Alekseev, a gay rights activist coordinating this effort, told Novaya Gazeta he had chosen this tactic rather than staging risky, unsanctioned gay parades.

The group had not applied for a permit in Chechnya, but in another Muslim region in southern Russia, Kabardino-Balkaria. The mere application there — denied, as usual — had prompted an anti-gay counterdemonstration.

In the restive Muslim regions, Mr. Putin has empowered local leaders to press agendas of traditional Muslim values, to co-opt an Islamist underground. The gay pride parade applications became a galvanizing issue.

“In Chechnya, the command was given for a ‘prophylactic sweep’ and it went as far as real murders,” Novaya Gazeta reported.

According to the report, the authorities set to finding and arresting closeted gay men, partly by posing as men looking for dates on social networking sites.

“Of course, none of these people in any way demonstrated their sexual orientation publicly — in the Caucasus, this is equal to a death sentence,” the newspaper wrote of those detained in the sweep.</s>Russian newspaper says it has evidence that at least three men have been killed in ‘prophylactic sweep’ in Chechnya

Authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya have launched an anti-gay campaign that has led to authorities rounding up dozens of men suspected of being homosexual, according to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and human rights activists.

The newspaper’s report, by an author regarded as a leading authority on Chechnya, claimed that more than 100 people had been detained and three men killed in the roundup. It claimed that among those detained were well-known local television personalities and religious figures.

Alvi Karimov, spokesperson for Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, described the report as “absolute lies and disinformation”, basing his denial on the claim that there were no gay people in Chechnya. “You cannot detain and persecute people who simply do not exist in the republic,” he told Interfax news agency.

“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.”

A spokesman for the region’s interior ministry told the Russian newspaper RBC that the report was “an April fool’s joke”.

However, Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, Russia project director for the International Crisis Group, told the Guardian she had been receiving worrying information about the issue from various sources over the past 10 days. “I have heard about it happening in Grozny [the Chechen capital], outside Grozny, and among people of very different ages and professions,” she said.



The extreme taboo nature of the subject meant that much of the information was arriving second or third hand, and as yet there are no fully verifiable cases, she added. “It’s next to impossible to get information from the victims or their families, but the number of signals I’m receiving from different people makes it hard not to believe detentions and violence are indeed happening.”



Chechnya is formally part of Russia, but functions as a quasi-independent state in which the word of Kadyrov often seems to transcend Russian laws. He has overseen the rebuilding of the republic with Moscow’s money, after two devastating wars. Kadyrov has at various times endorsed polygamy, compulsory wearing of the hijab for women in public places, and collective punishment for the relatives of those involved in the Islamist underground.



Chechen society is strictly conservative, meaning that unlike other cases where relatives or rights activists may put pressure on authorities when a homosexual relative disappears, those suspected are likely to be disowned by their own families. Locals say that if a family was known to have a gay member, other relatives would find it difficult to marry due to the “shame”.

Attitudes to LGBT rights are mixed in Russia, with an infamous law banning the “propaganda of homosexuality among minors” on the books. But Moscow and other big cities have a thriving gay scene, even if much of it remains underground. In Chechnya and the other Muslim republics of the North Caucasus, there is no discussion of the issue, and gay men do not even tell their closest friends of their orientation.

The Novaya Gazeta article claimed that three people had been killed, and suggested others could have been handed to their families with the expectation that the family would perform an honour killing.

An LGBT rights organisation in St Petersburg has set up an anonymous hotline for gay people in Chechnya to seek help with evacuation from the republic. After years of threats and repression, almost no independent journalists or rights activists are able to work in the region, and those who do work on human rights in the republic dismissed the newspaper report.



“I haven’t had a single request on this issue, but if I did, I wouldn’t even consider it,” Kheda Saratova, a Chechen activist who is on Kadyrov’s human rights council, told a Russian radio station. “In our Chechen society, any person who respects our traditions and culture will hunt down this kind of person without any help from authorities, and do everything to make sure that this kind of person does not exist in our society.”</s>Authorities in Chechnya have reportedly been rounding up more than 100 men suspected of being gay, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and human rights activists claimed. At least three men have been killed in the roundup.

The report, citing Russian federal law enforcement officials, alleged that well-known local television personalities and religious figures were detained "in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such". According to The New York Times, men aged between 16 and 50 have disappeared over the last week.

The newspaper's report was written by an author regarded as a leading authority on the Russian republic, The Guardian reported.

Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, vehemently denied the allegations, claiming there are no gay people in Chechnya.

Alvi Karimov, a spokesperson for Kadyrov, called the report "absolute lies and disinformation" and reiterated Kadyrov's claim that gay people do not live in the republic.

"You cannot detain and persecute people who simply do not exist in the republic," he told Interfax news agency. "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."

A spokesman for Chechnya's interior ministry dismissed the report as "an April fool's joke" to the Russian newspaper RBC.

The roundup was reportedly launched after a Moscow-based gay rights group, GayRussia.ru, applied for permits to stage gay pride parades in four cities in Russia's Northern Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya.

The Times reported that the group was not focused on the predominantly Muslim area, but rather was collecting the inevitable denials from provincial cities around Russia to build a case about gay rights and freedom of assembly with the European Court of Human Rights.

While the group had not applied for a permit in Chechnya, it nevertheless prompted an anti-gay counterdemonstration, the Times reported. "In Chechnya, the command was given for a 'prophylactic sweep' and it went as far as real murders," Novaya Gazeta claimed.

To find the gay men, authorities reportedly posed as men looking for dates on social networking sites.

Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, Russia project director for the International Crisis Group, told The Guardian that she has received information that supports the claims. "I've heard about it happening in Grozny [the Chechen capital], outside Grozny, and among people of very different ages and professions," she said.

Sokirianskaia noted that much of the information has arrived second or third hand and that the organisation does not have fully verifiable cases. "It's next to impossible to set information from the victims or their families, but the number of signals I'm receiving from different people makes it hard not to believe detentions and violence are indeed happening."

Gay men have now started deleting their online accounts or fleeing the region, the Times reported. Novaya Gazeta also published contact information to help men who want to leave Chechnya for relatively more tolerant parts of Russia.</s>A mainstream Russian publication has alleged that nearly 100 men have been rounded up by police in Chechnya as a way to rid the city of its gay population.

The shocking anti-LGBTQ claim, first made on Saturday by the Novaya Gazeta, a local newspaper in the European territory, before being transcribed by American outlets, including the New York Times and Towerload one day later, notes the sudden snatching of several dozen men between the ages of 16 and 50 from the Chechen Republic as being part of a large-scale manhunt against those who are suspected of having a “non-traditional sexual orientation.”

Additionally, “an analyst of the region with her own sources confirmed that more than 100 gay men had been detained,” the Times further detailed, “[with] the [Russian] newspaper [offering the] names of three [supposed] murder victims, and many others who had [reportedly] died in extrajudicial killings.”

According to writers of the Gazeta, the police push was initially promoted by law enforcement officials in the country as being a “prophylactic sweep” of certain undesirables, with cops additionally being given the go-ahead to permanently silence any individual who was brave enough to fight back.

“It began,” the Times goes on to relay, “after a Moscow-based gay rights group, GayRussia.ru, applied for permits to stage gay pride parades in four cities in Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region,” including Chechnya.

The members of GayRussia.ru were said to have purposely avoided most of the more Muslim-heavy regions for the sake of maintaining peace, the report later expresses, but still were met with heavy opposition due to the country’s well-known anti-gay stance.

“[Even in more lenient] Muslim regions,” the Times post continues, “[Russian president Vladamir Putin] has empowered local leaders to press agendas of traditional Muslim values, to co-opt an Islamist underground [mindset],” so much so, that even filling out the paperwork to have the LGBT Pride Parade was taken as an offense worthy of death.

“In Chechnya, the command was given for a ‘prophylactic sweep’ and it went as far as real murders,” Novaya Gazeta journalists confirmed.

“Of course, none of these people in any way demonstrated their sexual orientation publicly, [but] in the Caucasus,” they continued, the idea of inquiring a request to hold the LGBT-themed gathering was “equal to a death sentence.”

Adding fuel to the rumors of the disappearances are the self-motivated mass exodus of gay men in and around Chechnya who fear that they may be prosecuted beneath the controversial maneuver, as well as a statement given by a young social media user, 16, who declared that he had been held and physically ambushed inside of a city-located detention center, due to being homosexual.

“[I’m] all beaten [up],” he reportedly posted, “[and am] just a sack with bones.”

In a statement given to Interfax, a spokesman for Ramzan Kadyrov, the current head of the Chechen Republic, denied the existence of such acts by stating that no gay men are currently reside in Chechnya.

“[The Novaya Gazeta report is nothing but] absolute lies and disinformation,” Alvi Karimoc remarked.

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic. If such people existed in Chechnya,” he went on to say, “law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”

International Crisis Group project organizer Ekaterina L. Sokiryanskaya, on the other hand, countered that the numbers prove otherwise.

“[There are] numerous [victims involved],” Ms. Sokiryanskaya states of the missing gay men from Chechnya, before adding, “it came from [way] too many sources not to be true.”</s>(CNN) Gay men are disappearing in Chechnya, according to a human rights activist and a leading opposition newspaper in Russia. Some are being detained; the fate of others is unknown, human rights groups say.

The newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, reported at the weekend that the men were detained "in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such," citing Russian federal law enforcement officials.

Novaya Gazeta reported that more than 100 gay men had been detained in the last two weeks and said it had the names of three who had been murdered.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm the newspaper's reporting. But Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, Russia project director of the International Crisis Group , told CNN that in the last 10 days she had received information from multiple sources in Chechnya about the detention of gay men, including a hairdresser as well as cultural and religious figures.

Sokirianskaia, a Moscow-based expert on the Caucasus region that includes the Russian republic of Chechnya, said the volume of information made it "almost impossible to believe this is not happening, but it is also very difficult to verify because Chechen society is extremely homophobic."

She said it was unclear what had triggered the apparent anti-gay campaign.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told CNN on Monday that the reports were "a question for law enforcement -- it's not on the Kremlin's agenda."

"We don't know how much of it is true," Peskov added. "I'm not an expert in the field of non-traditional sexual orientation."

He said the Interior Ministry would investigate the report.

The response from Chechnya -- an almost entirely Muslim republic, which includes part of Russia's border with Georgia -- was very different. The press secretary of the republic's Interior Ministry, Magomed Deniev, told Russian media that the report "is probably an April Fool's joke."

A spokesman for the Chechen government, Alvi Karimov, told the Russian news agency Interfax that the story in Novaya Gazeta was "an absolute lie."

But Karimov's fuller explanation underlined the deeply conservative and intolerant views of the republic's leadership.

"You can't detain and harass someone who doesn't exist in the republic," he said.

"If there were such people in the Chechen republic, law enforcement wouldn't have a problem with them because their relatives would send them to a place of no return."

Karimov appears to have been talking about so-called "honor killings" or the murders of people who offended social conventions by their own families.

Sokirianskaia at the International Crisis Group said honor killings still happened in Chechnya, and gay men would get no protection from their families, who would see them as a source of shame.

But she said some gay men had left Chechnya and were now beginning to tell their stories to gay rights groups.

She said there was no gay 'community' as such in Chechnya. Small groups would connect by phone but ran the risk of discovery because of the monitoring of calls by the Chechen security services.

Gay individuals lived, Sokirianskaia said, in a climate of fear, paranoid about being discovered.

Even human rights officials in Chechnya are unsympathetic on LGBT issues. Heda Saratova, head of the Human Rights Council in Chechnya, dismissed the article in Novaya Gazeta as "spitting into our face, our traditions, our customs."

Saratova told CNN by phone that "even if people with non-traditional sexual orientation are present in our society, no one would ever know about this. They [gay rights groups] say that they want to hold gay parades here, this is just absurd."

Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya since 2004, has stifled any form of dissent, subduing the separatist movement that fought the Russian army for nearly two decades.

In 2009, Kadyrov said in a newspaper interview that "Prostitution, drugs and gays are the poison of our time. How can Russia support gay clubs?"

"There is a whole system aimed at weakening the country, the will, honor, and spirit," Kadyrov said of what he considered vices.

He has also spoken favorably of polygamy.

In 2013, Putin signed a law that barred public discussion of gay rights and relationships anywhere that children might hear it. The law has been condemned by Russian and international rights groups.

Human Rights Watch described the anti-gay propaganda law as "a profoundly discriminatory and dangerous bill that is bound to worsen homophobia in Russia."</s>Authorities are rounding up and killing gay men in the Russian-controlled region of Chechnya, according to a report from a Russian paper, covered by the New York Times.

Novaya Gazeta reportedly spoke with federal Russian authorities, who confirmed that local law enforcement was detaining closeted gay men "in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such." The paper named three murder victims, and made the educated guess that there had been many more, as more than 100 men have been arrested so far.

According to the New York Times, the round-up is the Chechen government's response to a gay rights group's effort began applying for parade permits in the North Caucasus. Filing applications with the expectation that they would be denied, GayRussia.ru wanted to highlight a pattern of discrimination. But the area, which is heavily Muslim, is vehemently anti-LGBTQ rights, so much so that just filing a petition led to outrage.

In the Times' words, "Mr. Putin [Vladimir Putin, Russia's president] has empowered local leaders to press agendas of traditional Muslim values," conducting sweeps to arrest gay men, most of whom were catfished by Russian authorities lurking on social networking platforms.

Alvi Karimov — a spokesperson for Ramzan Kadryov, head of the Chechen Republic — said the report was "absolute lies and disinformation," according to the Times. He explained that the arrests couldn't have happened because "you cannot arrest or repress people who just don't exist in the republic."

Russia is infamously inhumane on the subject of homosexuality. In 2013, the country banned "propaganda" promoting "non-traditional sexual relationships," which is to say, the portrayal of gay couples in the media. In 2015, parliament toyed with the idea of outlawing "the public expression of non-traditional sexual relations, manifested in a public demonstration of personal perverted sexual preferences in public places," or being openly gay in public.

According to the Times, anti-LGBTQ sentiment is particularly strong in the Caucasus: "Of course, none of these people [the men arrested] in any way demonstrated their sexual orientation publicly," Novaya Gazeta reportedly wrote. "In the Caucasus, this is equal to a death sentence."</s>A Russian newspaper is reporting there has been a “prophylactic sweep” of men “in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such” by authorities in Chechnya.

Novaya Gazeta on Saturday reported more than 100 men in the semi-autonomous Russian republic have been arrested. At least three of these arrests have reportedly resulted in murder.

“What is happening to gay men in Chechnya is a horrific violation of human rights and the rule of law,” said Human Rights First’s Shawn Gaylord in a statement.

He added Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should “publicly condemn these actions.”

“The United States cannot stand idly by while innocent people are being rounded up, detained, and murdered by authorities,” said Gaylord.

The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Russian government, said “the Kremlin knows” about the situation, but “it is a question of law enforcement agencies.”

“It is not the Kremlin’s agenda,” he said.

The Chechen government appears to have taken a similar stance on the situation.

“It’s impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic,” said Ali Karimov, a spokesman for Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, in a statement to RIA Novosti, a Russian government news agency.

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” added Karimov, referring to the ancient custom of honor killing.

“Usually, people under arrest will bring shame on the family, so [their families] have to kill them,” Viacheslav Revin, a U.S.-based LGBT activist for Rusa LGBT, told the Blade as he spoke about the dangers of getting arrested in Chechnya.

“Unfortunately, people can be killed [or disappear] because someone doesn’t like the color of their shoes,” he continued.

Nikolai Alexeyev, the head of the Gayrussia.ru project, believes any official investigation “will prove nothing is going on in this region.”

“It will end up with big media coverage, [but] it will end up with nothing as the police will tell them there are no facts,” Alexeyev told the Blade.

“No one can identify these people, and no one can help them because if they wanted help they would be gone,” continued Alexeyev, referring to the hotline the Russian LGBT Network has set up for people who want to leave Chechnya. “No one will ever call this, because they will identify who is calling and where he is calling from.”

Alexeyev nevertheless feels there is an attitude of “don’t provoke, be silent.”

The founder of Moscow Pride told the Blade “society will never be ready if you don’t do anything.” Alexeyev said he has applied to 78 of Russia’s 85 regions to host public LGBT gatherings.

“Our campaign is purely legal, not contradicting Russian law,” said Alexeyev. “[We will take] the cases to the European Court of Human Rights if we lose.”

Novaya Gazeta, however, reported Alexeyev’s actions may have resulted in “calls for the killing of people with different sexual orientations.”

“In the Caucasus this news has caused mass protests, where the speakers demonstrated a high level of aggression,” said the newspaper in the article that first broke the story.

“We have never applied for any LGBT public assemblies in this region,” said Alexeyev. “It used a reaction to applying in another region as why it is happening in [Chechnya].”

He added there are “different explanations” for why this is happening.

“We will see in the next couple of months who needs this,” Alexeyev told the Blade.

Revin, who has received asylum in the U.S., told the Blade he is “not surprised” by what is happening in Chechnya. He added the arrests may be politically motivated.

“[There will be a] new election soon; they need some agenda,” said Revin.</s>More than 100 men suspected of being gay have been detained by Chechen authorities in a campaign against homosexuality, according to a report in a Russian newspaper.

Novaya Gazeta reported on Saturday that three people have been killed in the roundup of men ranging ages 16 to 50; the paper reported that more men may have died in extrajudicial killings.

Two local television reporters and religious figures are among those detained "on account of their sexual orientation — or suspicion of such," Novaya Gazeta reports. The paper also suggests that others may have been handed back to their families, where they risk being victims of honor killings, "a measure to wash away the shame of the family by killing the perpetrator of this shame."

The spokesperson of Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, called the report "lies," saying there are no gay people in the quasi-independent state, which is formally a part of Russia. "You cannot detain and persecute people who simply do not exist in the republic," Alvi Karimov told Interfax news agency, according to the New York Times . "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."

Anti-gay sentiment has been rising in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, where Chechnya is, after an LGBT-rights group applied for permits for gay pride parades.</s>MOSCOW — 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 was denied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesman, who 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.”

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Karimov was quoted in the New York Times as saying.

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.

According to the Times, the disappearances began with two television reporters, and then a waiter. The newspaper said the men who have disappeared ranged in age from 16 to 50.

The men were detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such,” the Novaya Gazeta reported, according to the Times.

The newspaper also said it had the names of three murder victims, and suspected many others had died in extrajudicial killings, the Times reported.

A spokesman for Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, denied the report in a statement to Interfax on Saturday, calling the article “absolute lies and disinformation.”

Novaya Gazeta reported that the arrests began after a gay rights group centred in Moscow applied for permits to stage gay pride parades in four cities in Russia’s North Caucasus region. The group had not applied for a permit in Chechnya, but in another Muslim region in southern Russia, the Times reported.

In the unsettled Muslim regions of the country, Putin has given local leaders his approval to crack down on non-traditional values, the the gay pride parade applications became a hot-button matter.</s>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 was denied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesman, who 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.”

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.
Russian authorities arrest more than 100 gay men in Chechnya, including television personalities and religious figures, for "nontraditional sexual orientation." The Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that three of the arrested men have been killed, while others reportedly were released for family honor killing. Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov's spokesperson said this report contains “absolute lies and disinformation” since there are no homosexuals in Chechnya.