Chechnya’s crackdown on gays
THE first reports about the arbitrary detention and possible extrajudicial killings of men suspected of being gay in Chechnya were bloodcurdling. The authorities began rounding up men after activists had sought permission to hold gay-pride parades in other parts of the North Caucasus region, which is predominantly Muslim, according to a newspaper report. At least three turned up dead. Some people reported being tortured.
Then came a baffling denial. “If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Alvi Karimov, spokesman for the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, told Russian news agency Interfax.
This abominable crime by a Russian republic, and its cover-up, warrant a strong response from the international community. That would be a stretch for the Russian government, which says there’s no evidence of any crimes and has sought to keep its own gay population invisible. In 2013, it enacted a law that criminalises promoting nonstraight conduct and identity even as it claimed all Russians were entitled to protection from discrimination.
Moscow’s “reaction to the allegations of systematic human rights violations against gay men in Chechnya constitutes a litmus test on whether this rhetoric was disingenuous”, said Fabrice Houdart, a human rights expert at the United Nations.
Moscow is unlikely to take meaningful action against Chechnya, or to rethink its broader policy towards gay rights, in the absence of strong international pressure.
The crimes in Chechnya have presented the Trump administration with its first major test on this issue. Last Monday, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, issued a strong statement calling for a prompt investigation and accountability for the culprits.
“We are against all forms of discrimination, including against people based on sexual orientation,” Haley said. “When left unchecked, discrimination and human rights abuses can lead to destabilisation and conflict.”
Without US leadership, forging a global consensus that gay rights are human rights will take longer. Time is not on the side of gay people living in terror in places like Chechnya.