Gay concentration camps in Chechnya

Beginning in February 2017, more than 100 male residents of the Chechen Republic, a part of the Russian Federation, have been abducted, held prisoner, and tortured by authorities targeting them based on their perceived sexual orientation. An unknown number of the men, whom authorities detained on suspicion of being gay or bisexual, have reportedly died after being held in what human rights groups and eyewitnesses have called concentration camps.

Allegations were initially reported on 1 April 2017 in Novaya Gazeta, a Russian-language opposition newspaper, which reported that over 100 men had allegedly been detained and tortured and at least three had died in an extrajudicial killing. The paper, citing its sources in the Chechen special services, called the wave of detentions a "prophylactic sweep." The journalist who first reported on the subject has gone into hiding. There have been calls for reprisals against journalists who report on the situation.

As news spread of Chechen authorities’ actions, which have been described as part of a systematic anti-LGBT purge, Russian and international activists scrambled to evacuate survivors of the camps and other vulnerable Chechens but met with difficulty obtaining visas to conduct them safely beyond Russia.

The reports of the persecution met with a variety of reactions worldwide. Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov denied not only the occurrence of any persecution but also the existence of gay men in Chechnya. Officials in Moscow were bluntly sceptical, although in late May the Russian government reportedly agreed to send an investigative team to Chechnya. Numerous national leaders and other public figures in the West condemned Chechnya’s actions, and protests were held in Russia and elsewhere.

The status of LGBT rights in the Chechen Republic has long been a concern among human rights organizations, and it has been described as "especially bleak" within the context of the Russian Federation as a whole. It was also singled out for criticism by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International before the 2017 crackdown. Chechnya, with citizens who mostly come from regions in former Soviet states and the Middle East, is an ultra-conservative society in which homophobia is widespread and homosexuality is taboo, and where having a gay relative is seen as a "stain on the entire extended family."

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