Chechnya’s Anti-Gay Purge

21 Posts

•

0 Followers

Armenia

Armenia grants asylum to queer Chechen

by Arshaluys Barseghyan

•2 min read

An Armenian court has granted asylum to a queer Chechen man, blocking his extradition to Russia. On Monday, Yerevan’s Administrative Court ruled in favour of granting 41-year-old Salman Mukayev, a Chechen native residing in Armenia, asylum. The court overruled the Migration Service’s decision to reject Mukayev’s 2021 asylum application on the grounds that his life would not be in danger in Russia outside of Chechnya. Mukayev was reportedly detained by the Russian authorities in Chechnya

Idris Arsamikov. Image via NC SOS Crisis Group.

Chechnya

Chechen man publishes video denying homosexuality following detention

by Tata Shoshiashvili

•2 min read

Chechen Idris Arsamikov, who was last week reportedly detained in a Moscow airport, has published a video calling for ‘queers to stop defending [his] rights’. Rights organisations claim that the videos were made under duress. Arsamikov, 28, was reportedly detained at Domodedovo International Airport on 16 February, presumably while attempting to leave Russia. NC SOS Crisis Group, a queer rights organisation based in the North Caucasus, sent a lawyer to the airport to assist him and was info

Footage released by NC SOS appears to show Idris Arsamikov being led away by an unknown man.

Chechnya

Queer Chechen man reportedly detained at Moscow airport

by Tata Shoshiashvili

•2 min read

A queer man who fled Chechnya due to his sexuality has reportedly been detained at Moscow airport and taken in an unknown direction. NC SOS Crisis Group, a queer rights organisation operating in the North Caucasus, reported Idris Arsamikov’s detention on Thursday. Arsamikov had been living in the Netherlands but returned to Russia for his father’s funeral. Whilst in Chechnya, the group said Arsamikov was detained and beaten before being released. According to NC SOS, Arsamikov was again d

Chechnya

Chechen reportedly abducted in Grozny for being queer

by Luiza Mchedlishvili

•1 min read

A Chechen man and two of his acquaintances have been abducted by the police because of their sexuality, local human rights activists have reported. On 25 July, footage emerged showing Rizvan Dadayev, a resident of Grozny, being interrogated by an unknown individual who coerces him into admitting that he ‘wanted to meet a guy for sex’. Igor Kochetkov, a human rights activist and former director of the Russian LGBT+ Network, said that Dadayev ‘may be in mortal danger’, citing the ‘numerous cas

Chechnya

Russian police ‘abduct gay Chechen brothers’ from safehouse in central Russia

by OC Media

•3 min read

Russian police have abducted two Chechen brothers in hiding in a safehouse in central Russia, activists report. According to the Russian LGBT Network, Ismail Isayev, 17, and Salekh Magamadov, 20, were taken on Thursday from a flat in Nizhny Novgorod. The group provided the flat to the men as a refuge from the ongoing persecution of suspected homosexuals in Chechnya. They were awaiting visas to flee the country. Nizhny Novgorod is a major city in Central Russia 1,900 kilometres away from C

Chechnya

Chechnya: No criminal charges in homophobic exorcism case

by OC Media

•2 min read

The Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs has refused to open a criminal case into allegations by a woman that her relatives attempted violent exorcisms to change her sexual orientation. Aminat Lorsanova, 22, has said that while she was institutionalised in two separate treatment centres in 2018, family members forcibly sedated and beat her repeatedly as a form of gay conversion therapy. Veronika Lapina, a member of the Russian LGBT Network who is representing Lorsanova, told OC Media that t

Chechnya

Two people ‘tortured to death’ in new wave of queer persecutions in Chechnya

by OC Media

•4 min read

At least two people have been tortured to death and 40 detained in a new wave of state persecutions of queer people in the Russian Republic of Chechnya, Russian activists say. According to a statement issued by rights group the Russian LGBT Network on Monday, police are holding detainees in prisons in the city of Argun. The new wave of arrests reportedly began in early December and included both men and women suspected of being queer. RFE/RL-operated news site Nastoyashcheye Vremya (