Gay men are beginning to flee Chechnya as Russian activists say more than 100 gay men are being held in a detention centre, some even tortured. Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov Natalia Poplevskaya of the Russian LGBT Network told the BBC the organisation is aware of “an organised campaign to detain gay men” in Chechnya and are currently working to evacuate men. They have also set up an email hotline for victims and those worried about persecution wishing to flee to other areas of Russia. She says more than 30 people have been put in one cell and "Torture is going on with electric shocks, beatings with cables. All the people arrested are homosexual men or perceived as being gay.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian service has published accounts from three gay Chechen men who have escaped from the Russian republic. Read their stories here.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 12th April 2017 - 4:26pm