LGBT Concentration Camps Opened In Chechnya, 100 Gay Men Tortured?

Concentration camps for gays have been created in Chechnya, according to breaking news reports. Gay men have reportedly been tortured and killed because they are members of the LGBT community, according to Russian witnesses.

LGBT concentration camps have allegedly been built in several locations, including a secret prison on Argun, a region of the Chechen Republic of Russia. Survivors of the concentration camps for gays claim they were arrested and then taken to the prisons, the Novaya Gazeta reports.

Russian LGBT Network representative Svetlana Zakharova said the gay men who have escaped from the LGBT concentration camps revealed about 30 to 40 detainees are kept together in the same room. The gay men have allegedly been tortured using electric currents, beaten heavily multiple times per day, and forced to sit on bottles.

Horrifying. Utterly horrifying. ‘Chechnya has opened concentration camps for gay men.’ #LGBT #HumanRights https://t.co/srwe5BMITL

— Mathew Hulbert (@HulbertMathew) April 10, 2017

Approximately 100 gay men have been arrested and detained over the course of the past week. At least three men have allegedly been killed inside the LGBT concentration camps, Metro reports. The gay men held at the camps are reportedly being forced to vow they will leave the republic.

Chechnya is ruled by Russian federal powers and is a Muslim-majority country. Traditional Muslim values are strongly adhered to in the nation.

Chechnya allegedly began torturing gay men after an LGBT rights group based in Russia, GayRussia.ru, requested a permit to host a gay rights march in Grozny, the capital city.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen republic, is a staunch supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kadyrov has vehemently denied reports that blame him for setting up LGBT concentration camps for the purpose of torturing gays.

“It’s impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic,” said Alvi Karimov, a spokesman for the leadership of Chechnya. “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.”

Chechen officials have long said gay people do not live in their country.

In a statement released by the LGBT Network in Russia, the group maintained it is ready and willing to evacuate gay men held inside the concentration camps.

“No national and/or religious traditions and norms can justify kidnapping or killing of a human being. Any references to ‘traditions’ to justify kidnappings and killings are amoral and criminal”

Gay men are now allegedly fleeing Chechnya. The homosexual men are allegedly deleting their social media accounts to help avoid detection by the government.

We are super disturbed by reports that “concentration camps’ for LGBT people have been opened in #Chechnyahttps://t.co/l2yDhoPAolpic.twitter.com/1MZmgUyblC

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) April 11, 2017

The Russian LGBT network created a hotline for gay individuals seeking help to escape the possible torture who also fear the loss of their life and liberty. The group claims it has already received phone calls to the hotline reporting abuse and torture inside the Chechen concentration camps for gay men.

The alleged creation of gay concentration camps has been dubbed as a “gay purge” by outraged and shocked individuals on social media.

One Chechen gay man who claims to have been released from one of the LGBT concentration camps told reporters the prison guards violently interrogated him in an attempt to force him to provide the names and addresses of other gay men in the largely Muslim nation.

Human Rights Watch representative Tanya Lokshina maintains the “brutal campaign” against LGBT citizens has been going on around Chechnya for several weeks, Pink News notes. She went on to say law enforcement officials in Chechnya have tortured and humiliated “dozens” of men suspected of being gay. The men who have allegedly been released from the camps and sent back to their families were “barely alive” from the beatings they sustained, the Human Rights Watch member also said.

Do you think LGBT concentration camps exist in Chechnya?

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