An official at Russia’s Justice Ministry has said at the United Nations that the rights of the LGBT community were not violated in Chechnya because there were no gays there.
The sentiment was first expressed by Chechen strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov who, faced with media reports that gay Chechens were allegedly detained and tortured, maintained that “we don’t have any gays.” Last year, the investigative Novaya Gazeta reported that more than 100 men had been starved, beaten, and tortured with electric shocks in a government-backed crackdown on local gays.
