Cork protest over treatment of gay men in Chechnya

A number of groups are to hold a demonstration on Cork’s Grand Parade on Tuesday in protest at the reported detention and killing of gay men in Chechnya.

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that police in the predominantly Muslim federal republic rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three of them have been killed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the Kremlin has no confirmed information about the reported detention and killing of gay men in Chechnya.

Chechen authorities have denied the reports, but the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights and prominent international organisations have urged the Russian government to investigate the reported abuse.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied the accusations, but the New York Times quoted his spokesman as saying that such targeting cannot take place as LGBT people “do not exist” in Chechnya. “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” spokesman, Alvi Karimov, reportedly said.

“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,” Mr Karimov said.

Tuesday’s protest is being organised by The Cork Pride Festival, in association with The Cork Gay Project, LinC, and Amnesty International.

“For the past few weeks, a brutal campaign purging LGBT people has been sweeping through the southern Russian Republic of Chechnya. Last week, over 100 men ranging in age from 15 to 50 were abducted and tortured. At least three have been murdered by Chechen authorities,” a statement from the groups read.

“Their alleged crime? The suspicion by Chechen authorities that they may be gay.

“These men are being forcibly detained in what is effectively the first gay concentration camp since Hitler’s camps were established in 1930s Germany.

“The world watched on from the sidelines then too and should have learnt its lesson; apathy may have enabled so-called ethnic cleansing then, but history can never again be allowed to repeat itself.”

The Cork demonstration in from 5.30pm to 6.30pm.