Press Secretary Kadyrov announced the absence of gays in Chechnya

Information about the detentions in Chechnya men for homosexuality is not true, the press secretary of the head of Chechnya Alvi Karimov told Interfax .

“The publication that has appeared - this is an absolute lie - you can’t detain and oppress the one who simply is not in the republic,” he said. “If there were such people in Chechnya, law enforcement agencies would not have any concerns with them, since relatives themselves would send them to the address where they would not return.”

Karimov called the publication of the Novaya Gazeta “an attempt to denigrate” Chechnya, as well as a lie and misinformation.

On April 1, New Gazeta reported that for several weeks in Chechnya, more than a hundred men were detained due to suspicions of homosexuality. According to the newspaper, some were then released, and they left the region.

Sources of the publication in the power structures of the republic called the detentions "preventive stripping." She, as NG writes, began after LGBT activists submitted notifications of intention to hold promotions in four cities of the North Caucasus.

The press service of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs suggested that it was an "primary joke." The Council for Human Rights under the head of Chechnya noticed that "the persecution of gays in Chechen society is not condemned."