They Starve You. They Shock You: Inside the Anti-Gay Pogrom in Chechnya
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Homosexuality is taboo in Chechnya and the mostly Muslim surrounding areas of the Caucasus region in southern Russia. This society is highly homophobic, said Ekaterina L. Sokiryanskaya, Russia project director for the International Crisis Group and an authority on Chechnya. Homosexuality is condemned. It is believed Islam considers it a great sin.
Nevertheless, before the crackdown, gay men in Chechnya could at least lead social lives, if heavily closeted ones, Maksim said. They met largely in private chat rooms on social networking sites with names like the Village or What the Mountains Are Silent About.
When two gay men meet, they dont tell one another their true names, Maksim said. Men met at cafes or at apartments rented for a night, he said. Nobody suspected my sexual orientation, not even my best friends.
The crackdown began after GayRussia, a rights group based in Moscow, applied for permits for gay pride parades in the Caucasus region, prompting counterprotests by religious groups, the men said. In Chechnya, it became something even worse a mass prophylactic cleansing of homosexuals, the security service agents told the gay men as they rounded them up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/world/europe/chechnya-russia-attacks-gays.html