2 tortured to death in new gay purge in Chechnya: Activists

Chechnya: In yet another crackdown on gay men and women in Chechnya, two people have been killed. Over two months in early 2017, at least three people were killed and nearly 200 people tortured, with many missing in the Islamic republic on Russia’s southern border.

Igor Kochetkov, head of the Russian LGBT Network, said in a video address published on Monday that at least 40 people were arrested and tortured in the latest wave. Two of them “did not survive the torture,” he said.

The new events mark a major new chapter in the affair while arbitrary arrests and torture have continued since 2017.

The administrator of an LGBT social media group was detained on December 29. That led to a large database of names and contact details falling into the hands of authorities. The majority of the arrested were taken to a detention centre in Argun, a semi-legal facility. They were tortured, forced to sign blank witness statements.

In Dec. the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) published a long-awaited report documenting wide-scale rights violations in Chechnya.