LGBT Activists Say Chechen Gov't "Kidnapping" and "Torturing" Gay Men

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Gay men are fleeing brutal persecution in Chechnya, where police are holding more than 100 people and torturing some of them in an anti-gay crackdown, Russian activists say, reports BBC.

Natalia Poplevskaya of the Russian LGBT Network said “we are working to evacuate people,” according to BBC.

The report says that the Chechen government has responded to the accusations calling them “lies” and said homosexual people “simply don’t exist in the republic”.

The mainly Muslim region is run by Ramzan Kadyrov, an authoritarian leader with a notorious private militia, fiercely loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, explained BBC.

Both circumstances lead to a very anti-gay sentiment across the region.

Ms Poplevskaya told BBC that victims – either gay or just perceived as gay – are being held at a detention centre near Argun, 13 miles from the city of Grozny.

She told BBC that the LGBT Network, based in St Petersburg, was aware of “an organised campaign to detain gay men” in Chechnya.

“Torture is going on with electric shocks, beatings with cables. All the people arrested are homosexual men or perceived as being gay,” she said, according to BBC. Three deaths have been reported.

More than 30 people were crammed into one cell, she added.

Poplevskaya also mentioned that despite her appeals to the authorities, no action has been taken.

Kadyrov spokesman Alvi Karimov denied the alleged persecution.

“You can’t detain and repress people who simply don’t exist in the republic,” he said, reports BBC.