Translated material
Kadyrov's press secretary: if there were gays in Chechnya, they would be sent to an address from which they do not return
The press secretary of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, Alvi Karimov, called the publication of Novaya Gazeta about the persecution of gays in the region "absolute lies and disinformation", as well as "an attempt to denigrate the Chechen Republic." It is reported by Interfax.
“You cannot detain and harass someone who is simply not in the republic,” Karimov said. “If there were such people in Chechnya, the law enforcement agencies would not have any worries with them, since their relatives themselves would send them to an address from which they do not return.”
Earlier, a Chechen human rights activist, a member of the HRC under the head of Chechnya, Kheda Saratova , said that law enforcement agencies and “the entire judicial system” of the republic would “treat with understanding” the murder of a gay man by his relatives, while she herself “would not even consider” a statement about such a crime.
“If there are people in the law enforcement agencies of the republic — the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office, and so on — who whisper something, being afraid to name themselves, they are not men, but an empty place,” A. Karimov concluded.
- On April 1, Novaya Gazeta reported, citing sources, that more than a hundred gays had recently been detained in Chechnya, three were killed. The newspaper linked the mass detentions to an attempt by LGBT activists to coordinate public actions in the cities of the North Caucasus, which provoked an aggressive reaction among local residents.