Novaya Gazeta published testimonies of gays imprisoned in a “secret prison” in Chechnya

Novaya Gazeta published testimonies of several homosexuals who, over the past two months, have been persecuted by security forces in Chechnya and ended up in a “secret prison” in Argun. According to the publication, three people were killed, and there is also unconfirmed information about a fourth victim.

The first wave of persecution of gays in Chechnya began around February 20 of this year, when security forces detained a man in a state of drug intoxication. On his phone, “photos and videos of explicit content and dozens of contacts of local homosexuals were found.” Based on these contacts, arrests and extrajudicial killings began. Among those detained were not only gays, but also heterosexual residents of Chechnya.

The detainees ended up in a “secret prison” in the city of Argun near Grozny. “The prison consists of several buildings that are formally empty. In the 2000s, the military commandant’s office was located here, then the Argun police department was located there. Now the Russian Department of Internal Affairs for the city of Argun has moved to a new location, and the former military commandant’s office (address: Argun, Kadyrov Street, 99b) has become one of the many places of secret detention of people in Chechnya. Information about this secret prison can be found in the 2010 report of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammamberg,” writes Novaya Gazeta.

Sources of the publication said that the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov (known by the call sign “Lord”) and the head of the Department of Internal Affairs for Argun, Ayub Kataev, are involved in the persecution of homosexuals.

The second wave of arrests, as Novaya Gazeta writes, was provoked by Moscow LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseev, who submitted applications to hold a gay pride parade in several cities of the North Caucasus. “At least in one of the secret prisons, which appears in literally all the testimonies of the people we interviewed, at the time of filing a provocative statement from GayRussia.ru activists , those detained on suspicion of homosexuality had already been released. And now the prison is full again,” the publication notes.

Several homosexuals, whose stories are published by Novaya Gazeta, talk about how Chechen security forces blackmail them, extorting money, and how they were tortured after the start of mass detentions of gays in Chechnya.

“The detainees were tortured, put on a bottle, and given electric shocks. Some were beaten half to death and returned to their relatives like a bag of bones,” said one of the victims.

Another says: “As soon as a person is brought into the territory, torture immediately begins. Current, beating with polypropylene pipes. They always beat us only from the waist down - legs, thighs, buttocks, lower back. They said that we are “dogs who have no right to live.” We forced other prisoners to mock us. They have been sitting there for years, most of them have already lost hope of release. And they don't have much choice. We understood.

They also beat us with sticks. We were placed in two rows opposite each other, several dozen people. They gave out sticks like bats. And everyone passed through this system. It’s hard to bear three or four sticks, it’s very painful, but when you go through twenty, not everyone can bear it. I didn't know how to deal with pain, although I always thought I had a high pain threshold. To overcome the pain, I began to gnaw my hands until they bled, as a counterbalance to the torture. And it helped."

Now these people are safe outside Russia, the publication notes.

On April 1, Novaya Gazeta, citing its sources , wrote that about a hundred gays were detained in Chechnya, and three were killed. As the newspaper noted, information about the arrests began to arrive about a week before publication. Among those detained on suspicion of homosexuality were representatives of the Chechen muftiate and two famous TV presenters.

Press secretary of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov Alvi Karimov, commenting on the publication, argued that “if there were such people in Chechnya <...> their relatives would send them to an address from which they do not return.”

A member of the Human Rights Council under the head of Chechnya, Kheda Saratova, also insisted that Chechen society would not condemn “even extreme measures” against LGBT people. “I think that even if such a person is killed by his own relatives, they will do whatever they can not to disclose it. And the entire judicial system, and the same authorities, will also treat with understanding what happened in this family. They will not particularly rock the boat and defend this person. I haven’t received a single application, but I wouldn’t even consider it,” Saratova said. She later said that she regretted some of her statements.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov assured that the police will check the data on the arrests and murders of gays in Chechnya.