There have been many disappearances and deaths of gays lately in Chechnya, which is a region within Russia. Russian authorities have sworn that they will get to the bottom of this conspiracy. The regional government, however, does not seem at all concerned. “you cannot detain… what simply does not exist.” said Novaya Gazeta on Saturday.
Sources from the Russian newspapers have cited that authorities in the conservative and predominantly the Muslim Chechen Republic have detained over 100 men just in the past week. Names were not given of the people that are contained, but two Chechen TV personalities and religious workers, have been held in captivity. Moreover, three people were killed during the process of being detained. However, Chechen authorities have denied these statements.
“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to a place of no return.” said on Saturday by Alvi Karimov, spokesman for Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Russian police will still look into to it.
“We do not know how far this information corresponds with reality,” he told the Russian news on Monday. “Of course there are publications and the internal affairs organs will look into this case,” he added.
Many Russian liberals are in an uproar on how the local authorities are trying to resolve this issue or lack thereof. This caused for the liberal Russian Liberal party, Yabloko, to call for an investigation.
The Chechen government and Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov have sworn loyalty to Vladimir Putin, despite the fact of Chechnya being its own land with its own laws. This means that Putin will have input on this whether this matter will be looked into or not. Chances are the anonymity on this case will increase.
