Spiegelin juttu Tsetsenian gay pidätyksistä. Käänsin englanniksi.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gese...zt-hilft-nur-noch-die-ausreise-a-1141666.html
More than a hundred arrests and at least three deaths: according to a report by the investigator-journalist Elena Milaschinavon of the Russian "Novaya Gazeta", the Chechen authorities are currently massively against homosexuals and transgender people. "The names of three dead are known to us, but our sources assume that there are many more victims," the article says.
Milashina refers to information from LGBT activists as well as from representatives of various authorities, the Ministry of the Interior, the Chechen public prosecutor and local intelligence circles. Among those arrested are also a prominent Muslim cleric as well as two well-known Chechen TV presenters.
There is still confirmation of the deaths and arrest. According to the Chechen Ministry of the Interior, the newspaper's report is probably about a April farewell. A spokesman for the authoritarian president, Ramsan Kadyrov, immediately dismissed the reports: "You do not have to arrest or oppress anyone who does not exist in our republic", stated Karimov. But even if there were homosexuals in Chechnya, the security forces would have no problem with them "because their own relatives would send them there from where they would not return."
While it is doubtful that Chechnya is "gay-free," the frequent departure of families from homosexual children is a fact. Homophobia and stigmatization of gays, lesbians and transgenders are so large in the Muslim-influenced partial republic that families sometimes break their own children out of shame when their non-mainstream sexual identity becomes public.
"We have several informants in Chechnya who have confirmed the report of the 'Novaya Gazeta'," says Tanja Lokschina of Human Rights Watch in Moscow. "We have to assume that the authorities are driving an anti-gay campaign, forcing many to leave the country." It is particularly disturbing that the Kremlin recommends full-bodiedly recommending to the authorities the following: "In Chechnya, no one talks about his sexual orientation, and he does not report much when he is attacked . " In Russia, the situation for homosexuals is already bad enough - "in the Muslim part of the republic, it is extreme because it is discriminated not only by the authorities, but also by their own families".
Chechnya's President Ramsan Kadyrov (right) and his spokesman Alwi Karimov
Picture alliance / dpa
Chechnya's President Ramsan Kadyrov (right) and his spokesman Alwi Karimov
None of those who had been arrested had shown his homosexuality to the outside, Elena Milaschina stressed in her article that "this would be equivalent to a death penalty in the Caucasus." Cheda Saratova, a member of the Chechnya Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, recently declared that homosexuality was "the evil against which every Chechen will fight".
Accordingly, the reactions to the presumed masses in the gay community should have been drastic. Many Facebook and WhatsApp groups were closed for fear of reprisals. The "Novaya Gazeta" quotes from a post in which it is warned not to get involved with strangers, because homophobes would put more traps to gobble up, to humiliate, to beat up, or to kill, gays and lesbians. "Be very careful," the warning says.
The Russian LGBT network was also extremely concerned about the report and the polarizing reaction of the President-in-Office. Any attempt to justify abductions and killings by calling on traditions is "amoral and criminal". Those concerned would have to be taken out of the danger zone immediately. "Be aware that the human rights situation in the North Caucasus is really difficult, and now that the lives of the people are threatened, only the exit helps."
Ramsan Kadyrov reigns Chechnya with a hard hand, his militants, the "Kadyrov", are notorious. Again and again there are serious human rights violations, abductions, torture and murders. Russia leaves its "statthalter" to a large extent, especially when it comes to unloved minorities, which are legally discriminated against in law in Russia and can be punished in some regions for "homosexual propaganda".
On Monday the spokesman of the Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke out. "We will review the reports of homosexual attacks in Chechnya," said Dmitry Peskov. He himself is "not a great specialist in non-traditional orientation," Peskow said, but the topic is not "on the agenda of the Kremlin".
