LGBT rights in Chechnya

Activists enact a scene of Chechen mothers mourning their children, draped in LGBT and Chechen nationalist flags. 1 may 2017. Nevsky Prospect, Saint Petersburg[1][2].

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in Chechnya have long been a cause for concern among human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. As a part of the Russian Federation, many of Russia's LGBT laws apply. However, Chechnya is a semi-autonomous republic within Russia's borders, with its own legal code, and the state imposes the death penalty (officially suspended) for sexual relations between men. In addition, there are few protections for LGBT citizens, and the government encourages the killing of people suspected of homosexuality by their families.

Since March 2017, a violent crackdown on the LGBT community led to the abduction and detention of gay and bisexual men, who were beaten and tortured.^[3][4] More than one hundred men, and possibly several hundred men, were targeted.^[3] At least three,^[5] and reportedly as many as 20, were killed.^[6] The precise number of those detained and killed is unknown.^[4] A panel of expert advisors to the United Nations Human Rights Council reported in early April 2017 that: "These are acts of persecution and violence on an unprecedented scale in the region and constitute serious violations of the obligations of the Russian Federation under international human rights law."^[4]

Cultural aspects

Chechnya is a highly conservative society in which homophobia is widespread and homosexuality is taboo.^[3] Following two separatist armed conflicts in the 1990s—the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War—Chechnya "became increasingly conservative" under the leadership of President Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan Kadyrov, who is the head of the Chechen Republic.^[5] In Chechnya, as in other southern Russia regions, Russian President Vladimir Putin "has empowered local leaders to enforce their interpretation of traditional Muslim values, partly in an effort to co-opt Islamist extremism, which has largely been driven underground."^[4] Human Rights Watch reported in 2017 that "[i]t is difficult to overstate just how vulnerable LGBT people are in Chechnya, where homophobia is intense and rampant. LGBT people are in danger not only of persecution by the authorities but also of falling victim to 'honour killings' by their own relatives for tarnishing family honor."^[7] Ramzan Kadyrov has encouraged extrajudicial killings by family members as an alternative to law enforcement – in some cases, gay men in prison have been released early specifically to enable their murder by relatives.^[8]

Legal status

Homosexuality was first made illegal in Chechnya after Russia conquered it in the late 1800s. After the October Revolution, all of Russia legalized homosexuality again, but it was re-criminalized under Joseph Stalin for the whole Soviet Union. Homosexuality was relegalized in Russia once more in 1993,^[9] although between 1991 and 2000 Chechnya was de facto independent from Russia. In order to compete with Islamist warlords in the region, Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov adopted sharia law in 1996 and article 148 of the Chechen penal code made consensual anal intercourse (between two men or between man and woman) punishable by caning on the first two offences and execution on the third offence.^[10]

Although Chechnya returned to Russian direct rule in 2000, it retains some autonomy, and current leader Ramzan Kadyrov "has brought Islam to the fore of Chechnya's daily life, and gay people who reveal their sexuality are often discriminated against and shunned by their families."^[11]

Russia officially passed an anti-gay propaganda law in June 2013. It officially bans the distribution of “propaganda for nontraditional sexual relationships,” among children. The law has been criticized by several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, as “openly discriminatory” towards the LGBT population^[12] and has been cited as one of the reasons that the Kremlin has not responded fast enough to the persecution of gay people in Chechnya.^[13][14]

Anti-gay persecution in 2017

Demonstrations in Geneva against Chechen LGBT persecution, June 2017

In March 2017, the Moscow-based gay rights group GayRussia.ru requested permission to hold gay-pride rallies in four cities in the North Caucasus region. The group did not apply to hold a rally in Chechnya, but did apply to hold a rally in neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria. Although the group's application was denied, the request touched off a wave of anti-gay persecution in the region.^[4] Human rights observers reported that law enforcement across Chechnya began rounding up, imprisoning and torturing gay men, with at least three deaths reported by Human Rights Watch.^[8] An April 2017 article by Novaya Gazeta stated that more than 100 men were rounded up by police under suspicion of being gay and three were killed.^[11][15][16] On 7 April the US State Department stated that it had "numerous credible reports indicating the detention of at least 100 men on the basis of their sexual orientation".^[17] A spokesman for Chechnya's political leader denied the report, claiming that there are no homosexuals within their borders as "their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return", thus there could not have been any persecution of homosexuals by law enforcement.^[15][16] However, the International Crisis Group said they had received corrobating information.^[18] According to Novaya Gazeta, reports verified by the Russian LGBT Network, gay men were held at a secret prison in Argun, described in many sources as a concentration camp, where they were subjected to violence and torture.^[19][20] Chechen men who were detained in multiple detention centers report being beaten and tortured with electric shocks.^[3]

In a report issued on April 13, 2017, a panel of five expert advisors to the United Nations Human Rights Council—Vitit Muntarbhorn, Sètondji Roland Adjovi; Agnès Callamard; Nils Melzer; and David Kaye—condemned the wave of torture and killings of gay men in Chechnya. The panel wrote: "These are acts of persecution and violence on an unprecedented scale in the region and constitute serious violations of the obligations of the Russian Federation under international human rights law."^[4][21] The panel wrote:

We urge the authorities to put an end to the persecution of people perceived to be gay or bisexual in the Chechen Republic who are living in a climate of fear fuelled by homophobic speeches by local authorities. It is crucial that reports of abductions, unlawful detentions, torture, beatings and killings of men perceived to be gay or bisexual are investigated thoroughly.^[21]

300 Israeli gay men shaped as a "Pink triangle" supporting the gay prisoners in Chechnya

Michael Georg Link, the director of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, urged Russian authorities to "urgently investigate the alleged disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment" of gay men in Chechnya.^[5] General rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the rights of LGBT persons, Jonas Gunnarsson, noted “Alarming reports [..] from Chechnya in recent days concerning systematic abductions, torture and murders of individuals based on their sexual orientation”.^[22] Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson both condemned the persecutions in Chechnya.^[23][24] They also became an issue in the 2017 French presidential election, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Benoît Hamon and Emmanuel Macron condemning Chechnya's Kadyrov government for the detentions, while François Fillon and Marine Le Pen remained silent.^[25]

On April 12, 2017, a protest attended by hundreds was held outside the Embassy of Russia in London, U.K.^[26]

On April 15, Chechnya's press minister Dzhambulat Umarov demanded that Novaya Gazeta "apologize to the Chechen people" for suggesting LGBT people existed in the republic, and that if the paper did not stop publishing "hysteria" about "non-existent threats", then other people would "take care of them". This came after an April 3 speech to a crowd by Kadyrov calling the paper "enemies of our faith and of our motherland", with the crowd adopting a resolution of retribution against the journalists "wherever they are and without statute of limitations."^[27]

On May 5, 2017, a protest attended by hundreds was held outside the Embassy of Russia Tel Aviv,^[28] Israel. Later that day, 300 gay men stood in the shape of a pink triangle at Hilton Beach as a reminder of the Nazi concentration camp badges that were used to identify male prisoners accused of being gay.

On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin backed an inquiry into a reported crackdown on gay people in the republic of Chechnya, in the North Caucasus.^[29]

On May 11, 2017, police arrested five activists in Moscow while attempting to deliver a petition to Moscow prosecutors.^[30][31]

Several Chechen citizens have spoken out about their detention and torture, fleeing the country for neighboring Russia and safe-houses provided by LGBT activists.^[32]

On May 16, 2017, LGBT activist groups in France reported that they had filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Ramzan Kadyrov.^[33] Though Putin has formally withdrawn Russia as a signatory to the Rome Statute^[34], the complaint notes that the court still has a mandate to investigate until November 2017.^[35]

References