The Parliamentary rainbow cross-party group is urging Foreign Minister Murray McCully to condemn the detention and alleged murder of gay men in Chechnya. Labour MP Louisa Wall says “We have written to our Minister of Foreign Affairs as members of our cross-party Rainbow network to highlight consensus across parliament to do everything we can as a nation to register our protest at these actions.” Gay men are now beginning to flee Chechnya as Russian activists say more than 100 gay men are being held in a detention centre, some even tortured. Three men are said to have been killed. “Human rights are LGBTI rights and LGBTI rights are human rights has not been more relevant than to the current situation in Chechnya where from multiple reports they have established concentration camps for homosexuals where hundreds of men are being tortured with electric shocks and some beaten to death,” says Wall. “We must condemn this violence and these acts to eliminate members of our LGBTI community as atrocities against our fellow human beings and fellow global citizens.” She says this is the time for the wider LGBTI communities to mobilise and to protest to show support for our fellow human beings and members of the global LGBTI communities. “Silence is consent and that's why we must voice our opposition and condone these government sanctioned practices.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 13th April 2017 - 11:50am