# What's the SD on the persecution of gays in Chechnya?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 13, 2017, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366 "2017-04-13T08:24:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366/1 "2017-04-13T08:24:16Z")

</div>

In my FB feed today there are LOTS of posts about gays being imprisoned and otherwise persecuted in Chechyna. What is actually happening?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366/2 "2017-04-13T09:00:37Z")

</div>

I’ve been hearing about this recently, too. So far, reports but nothing confirmed. However, this is chilling:

> [@](#):
>
> Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesperson denied the claims on the grounds that no one in Chechnya is homosexual. “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” spokesman Alvi Karimov told Interfax. “If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them since their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366/3 "2017-04-13T09:31:57Z")

</div>

The source of this story appears to be a Russian LGBT advocacy network that then had an article in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Certainly many respectable media outlets are taking the claims of concentration camps and torture seriously eg:

> **[People are being beaten and forced to ‘sit on bottles’ in anti-gay ‘camps’ in...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chechnya-gay-men-concentration-camps-torture-detain-nazi-ramzan-kadyrov-chechen-russia-region-homophobic-a7677901.html)**
>
> Abuses allegedly included men being taken outside and beaten several times a day, having their hands electrocuted and being forced to sit on bottles

> **[Chechen police 'kidnap and torture gay men' - LGBT activists](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39566136)**
>
> Kidnappings and beatings of gay men are systematic in Chechnya, a Russian activist tells the BBC.

Of course the Chechnyan government is going to deny this. Given Ramzan Kadyrov’s reputation and past documented uses of torture and extra-judicial killings, I’d say the existence of the camps is highly plausible, but barring some under cover expose with hidden camera’s we’re not really likely to know 100 percent are we?

> **[Ramzan Kadyrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzan_Kadyrov#Accusations_of_human_rights_abuses)**
>
> Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov\[b\] (born 5 October 1976) is a Russian politician who currently serves as the Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist appointed mufti of Chechnya. He is a colonel general in the Russian military.
> Kadyrov is the son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who switched sides in the Second Chechen War by offering his service to Vladimir Putin's administration in Russia ...

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chaika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chaika/32/405_2.png) [@chaika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaika)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366/4 "2017-04-13T13:10:35Z")

</div>

I have read the reports in Novaya Gazeta, which is one of the very few remaining independent newspapers in Russia. (Anna Politkovskaya, the courageous journalist who was murdered more than ten years ago, wrote for NG.) The reports of mass arrests, torture, and murder all seem based on reliable accounts. None of it is surprising, given the state of hostility toward the LGBT community in contemporary Russia.

I could say a lot more, but I’m aware this question was posted in GQ so I’ll refrain from political commentary that might be better suited elsewhere.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-sd-on-the-persecution-of-gays-in-chechnya/784366/5 "2017-04-13T14:53:50Z")

</div>

I pitted the Chechens about this recently and quoted [this story](https://www.buzzfeed.com/hayesbrown/the-chechen-government-is-reportedly-kidnapping-and) from Buzzfeed about the rounding up of gays by the Chechen authorities who were then either ‘disappeared’ or released to their families in the hopes that they would kill them (and tragically it seems many families would oblige only too gladly).

It’s sickening.