Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 5 – Chechen head
Ramzan Kadyrov has not only sponsored direct attacks on members of the LGBT
community in his republic but has adopted a plan for “the final solution of gay
issue” and opened the first concentration camp in the world for sexual
minorities since Hitler did so in the 1930s, according to a Novaya gazeta investigation.
The goal of this effort, the paper’s
Elena Milashina and Irinia Gordiyenko say, is “the complete cleansing of
Chechnya from men of non-traditional sexual orientation.” The authorites have
set up several internment camps where inmates are killed or forced to promise
to leave the republic (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/04/04/72027-raspravy-nad-chechenskimi-geyami-publikuem-svidetelstva
and ixtc.org/2017/04/ramzan-kadyrov-otkryl-kontslagerya-dlya-geev-v-chechne/).
One of those who
fled told Milashina and Gordiyenko that before being incarcerated in one of
these camps, he had been forced to pay bribes to Chechen police of thousands of
rubles every month in order to survive.
Now, the regime has taken another step against gays by creating these
camps, this survivor says.
Another former
inmate said that he and others incarcerated in “the secret jail” were beaten to
force them to name other members of the gay community. The address of at least one of these
concentration camps is know: it is in the former military headquarters in Argun
at 996 Kadyrov Street, symbolic in its way.
Novaya gazeta and a few other
Russian outlets last week reported about repressions against gays in Chechnya,
but the Kadyrov regime denied all accusations. It even claimed that “if there
were homosexuals in Chechnya,” the authorities wouldn’t need to deal with them
because their relatives would.
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