Chechnya’s vicious strongman targets gays
Russia fought two bloody wars in Chechnya, said Alexander Melman in Moskovsky Komsomolets (Moscow), but what has it got to show for it? The province is formally a “subject” of the Russian federation, yet Russia’s rulers seem powerless to deal with its vicious strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov. They’ve made no progress in solving the assassinations of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, both believed to have been murdered by Chechen gunmen. Whenever President Putin addresses parliament, Kadyrov can be seen in the front row, an “adoring” expression on his face. But back home, he kills with impunity.
It has always been bad, but the level of state repression in Chechnya is now catastrophic, said Elena Milashina in Novaya Gazeta (Moscow). In recent months, Kadyrov has ordered a full-scale pogrom against gays: more than 100 are thought to have been arrested, tortured and, in some cases, killed; others have fled the republic. It began when police found explicit texts and images on a mobile phone belonging to a man they’d arrested on another charge, and it intensified when gay activists in Moscow announced plans to run gay parades in the Caucasus. Kadyrov’s spokesman called the very idea “an absolute lie and disinformation”, claiming there were no gays in Chechnya at all.
Those detained have recounted how they were told by police that they were “dogs that had no right to life”, subjected to electric shocks, and made to run a gauntlet of men armed with metal pipes, said Markus Wehner in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The victims reportedly include a wellknown TV presenter. Sometimes police release detainees “for lack of evidence”, but it doesn’t mean their troubles are over – in this notoriously homophobic region, their families can often be relied on to kill them to “erase the shame”.
We may be especially “shocked and disgusted” by these events, said Alice Bota in Die Zeit (Hamburg), but don’t imagine gays elsewhere in the region have it easy: the Kremlin has for years been cosying up to the Orthodox Church, which demonises homosexuals, and has passed stigmatising laws. Many have fled into exile. Far from pursuing crimes against gays, the Kremlin uses its propaganda machine to frighten voters with the spectre of “Gayropa”, a vision of a West made decadent by gay rights. In neighbouring countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, though discrimination isn’t legally sanctioned, it isn’t combated: politicians say they’re too busy dealing with problems caused by war and poverty. As long as anti-gay hostility is shrugged off as unimportant, homosexuals in the region will continue to suffer.