Chechnya opens world's first concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler's

[Odoreida]

Chechnya opens world's first concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler's in the 1930s where campaigners say gay men are being tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4397118/Chechnya-opens-concentration-camp-homosexuals.html

...

Alexander Artemyev, from Amnesty International in Russia, told MailOnline: 'We can only call on the Russian authorities to investigate the allegations. Homosexuals in Chechyna are treated very harshly and prosecuted daily and they are afraid to talk about it.

'They either have to hide or leave the republic. We are keeping in touch with the LGBT network that helps people in Russia to find shelter. The problem is people there cannot talk about it as it puts their lives and those they speak to, in danger. This is the main issue we are facing in Russia and the main challenge.'

Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, Russia project director for the International Crisis Group, told MailOnline: 'The story is very much developing...victims are escaping.'

...

Note: Chechnya, although "autonomous", is still part of Russia.

[shenmue]

2. Oh shit

Somebody get the UN, this must be stopped.

[lambchopp59]

3. Get a load of this chilling nonsense from the article:

Kadyrov's spokesman Alvi Karimov told the Interfax News Agency: 'You cannot arrest or repress people who just don't exist in the republic.
'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.'

There. See? Not a problem, we don't exist.
Say, Kadyrov, this existential gay american escaped the long arm of Westboro's murder the gay children plan in 1976.
If you don't believe that hate group didn't incite murder, I'm alive to tell you otherwise.
If I could sue that group for every hateful dime they've earned being fanatical hatemongers, I would not hesitate one minute.
It was some of Fred Phelp's extended family who turned my life into a living hell as soon as I got "outed" in my small town.

The fucking level of denial here is sickening, astonishing.

And it truly disturbs me when some sweet old grandma is baking an apple pie and wringing her hands in the delusion of scrubbing the U.S. of the "gay blight".
I've had to ply my trade with a smile to the occasional idiot wearing a "make america great again" hat, dumb fuckers completely clueless that they would exterminate their caregiver if given the opportunity.

[MuseRider]

4. Kansas?

I grew up in Topeka and went to school from 1st grade through part of my bachelor's degree with those kids. Fred Jr. is my age. I never knew them to be that violent but then I am not LGBT so I would not have had it directed at me. I am so sorry. They did mean harm and/or extinction that is for sure as does our governor at this time, but I never saw it. I am so very very sorry. We have done everything to stop them but they continue.

I am so glad you are alive and well. I hope you did get out of Kansas but we are working hard to make it better.

This article chilled me to the bone and that part that you highlighted? Man, that is just scary as hell. Shit like that ever starts here and my home becomes sanctuary for my friends and those who need help.

[lambchopp59]

6. No, these Phelps relatives are in a small town

About a day's drive from there. But the actual Fred-led family took regular visits there.
For reasons of personal safety I won't specify further. There is no one in that entire town unaware of how bad it got for me. I've only ever been in very brief contact with a couple of my ex-schoolmates there, who were profusely apologetic at any role they played to contribute to my virtual banishment, but that was over 20 years ago now, and I've burned all bridges back for good reasons.
The face to face "meeting" with Fred Phelps and family was one sick puppy of a hate-fest directed personally at me. Shirley was there, and for some reason I remember her clearly leading the weird "go to hell faggot" chant the whole entire family parroted as Fred was screaming in my face.
But it was just the beginning of the hatemongering his relatives stirred for me thereafter. "Faggot" replaced my name. I did not spend one more day at school I didn't come home with new bruises. But after houndingly plying their hateful trade for months thereafter, a death trap was set for me by my father.
I'm intentionally sketchy on many of the details till some autobiographical information I'm working on is completed and copyrighted.

[MuseRider]

7. I am so sorry.

I cannot imagine the hell you lived through. I am so sorry this happened to you and I quite understand why you don't want to say more. Don't. No need to.

I made Shirley's life miserable a couple of times, it was lovely but very brief.

Crazy assed family, had been the entire time I knew them which was quite a long time actually. They only got worse as the years went by. They are still here making noise. Although I no longer live in Topeka I am close and do go into town fairly often. They are a constant presence but seem to lack a little since the old man died. I imagine they will be doing stuff until the older kids, my age and a little younger, start to die off then the youngers may just decide to have an actual life. At least that would be a hopeful end I guess. It does need to be over.

Again, I am so sorry. I cannot imagine the hell that you went through. It was that kind of stuff that kept my brother from coming out until he was dying. Sad sad sad and such a waste. Be well and remember, so many people care about you.

[Odoreida]

5. More on the same story, this time from The Washington Post.

Gay and terrified in Chechnya
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gay-and-terrified-in-chechnya/2017/04/09/b128822e-18a1-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748_story.html

RAMZAN KADYROV is unlike any other provincial leader in Russia. He rules the republic of Chechnya with brute force and enjoys the indulgence of President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Mr. Kadyrov keeps order in Chechnya, and Mr. Putin keeps out of his way. Now this deal has apparently led to barbaric treatment of gay men in the traditionally conservative Muslim society.

The crusading newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a startling article April 1 that reported Mr.?Kadyrov’s armed thugs were detaining and executing gay men, with more than 100 men already seized, three of them known to be dead and many others possibly murdered in extrajudicial “honor” killings. A respected human rights expert, Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, Russia project coordinator for the International Crisis Group, told the New York Times and the Guardian that she had been receiving similar reports.

...

Mr. Putin either is fearful of Mr. Kadyrov or appreciates his approach, but either way, the result is to allow this violent ruffian to act with impunity ...

...

Emphasis added. I'm betting on "appreciates his approach". Putin may be fearful about some things, but not this.

There are important (and nasty) political reasons why it is expedient for Chechnya to be supposedly autonomous within the Russian Federation, but that isn't about gays.

I'm guessing this is a trial balloon. If the world sits still for it in Chechnya, all of Russia will not be far behind.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. This is sick. These people are not human, but rather they are monsters. nt

[Odoreida]

9. Follow up.

Inside Chechnya’s Vicious Anti-Gay Crackdown
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/13/inside-chechnya-s-vicious-anti-gay-crackdown.html

...

While the presence or not of the “camps” has yet to be independently verified, Tatiana Lokshina, program director for Human Rights Watch in Moscow, told the Daily Beast: “Chechen authorities did not build special 'LGBT concentration camps'--this information is misleading. But dozens of presumed gay men have been rounded up by local security officials and tortured in holding facilities, which are apparently maintained by Chechen authorities in several districts of Chechnya. People detained arbitrarily, abduction style, are generally taken there for interrogation, which practically always involves torture and cruel, degrading treatment."

...

[Initech]

10. Absolutely horrifying. We're going backwards at an alarming rate.

[Odoreida]

11. Story makes the front page of The New York Times

‘They Starve You. They Shock You’: Inside the Anti-Gay Pogrom in Chechnya
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/world/europe/chechnya-russia-attacks-gays.html