Welcome to Chechnya’: Sundance’s Horrific ‘Gay Purge’ Documentary Every Human Must See; The Daily Beast, January 30, 2020

Kevin Fallon, The Daily Beast; 'Welcome to Chechnya’: Sundance’s Horrific ‘Gay Purge’ Documentary Every Human Must See

"Welcome to Chechnya, a documentary that debuted this week at the Sundance Film Festival ahead of a premiere on HBO this summer, has left audiences in Park City in shock, heartbreak, and outrage. Directed by David France, who previously helmed How to Survive a Plague and The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson, the film spotlights the crisis by following those brave few and the persecuted Russians whose lives they are saving by risking their own.

The film reveals an underground pipeline of activists working tirelessly to secretly remove at-risk LGBT+ Chechens and those who have survived being detained from the republic, transport them to safe houses, provide them with financial and psychological support, and help sneak them out of the country and find asylum...

The videos are horrific, the kind of atrocities no human should be meant to see. And it’s exactly why everyone must see it."

Parents are told – ‘Kill your gay children or we’ll do it for you’: Terrifying threats made by Chechen police are revealed by victims of country’s ‘concentration camps’ for homosexuals; Daily Mail, May 3, 2017

Dave Burke, Daily Mail; 

Parents are told – ‘Kill your gay children or we’ll do it for you’: Terrifying threats made by Chechen police are revealed by victims of country’s ‘concentration camps’ for homosexuals

"Reports from the Chechen republic claim that homosexuals are being rounded up and killed on the orders of leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

And last week the British Parliament heard Kadyrov intends to eliminate the gay community by the end of this month.

Horrifying testimony from survivors from Chechen concentration camps say victims are being tortured and their family summoned to kill them.

A survivor told France24: 'They tell the parents to kill their child. They say, "Either you do it, or we will". They call it "cleaning your honour with blood".

'They tortured a man for two weeks [then] they summoned his parents and brothers who all came.

'The authorities said to them: "Your son is a homosexual – sort it out or we'll do it ourselves.""

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays; New York Times, April 24, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays

[Kip Currier: I was recently thumbing through a file folder of comic strips and Op-Eds I've bookmarked over the years and came across this one by the brilliant political cartoonist Rob Rogers, featured frequently in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The cartoon is from 2007 but is eerily timely, and reminiscent of recent statements by Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his administration, denying the very existence of gays, while euphemistically threatening "such people" with death. Frank Bruni's Food, Sex and Silence trenchantly points out "how often oppression is an act of omission rather than commission". Chilling first-hand reports from Chechen gay men and human rights groups show how oppression is also waged through both strategies.] 

[The Guardian, April 21, 2017] "Previously, Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov denied the reports of the purge, saying there were no gay people in Chechnya. “If there were such people in Chechnya, law enforcement agencies wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning,” he said."

[The New York Times Editorial Board, April 24, 2017] 

"The crimes in Chechnya have presented the Trump administration with its first major test on this issue on the international stage. Last Monday, Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, issued a strong statement calling for a prompt investigation and accountability for the culprits.

“We are against all forms of discrimination, including against people based on sexual orientation,” Ms. Haley said. “When left unchecked, discrimination and human rights abuses can lead to destabilization and conflict.”

It would be encouraging to see Ms. Haley take on this cause with as much passion and perseverance as her predecessor, Samantha Power. Without American leadership, forging a global consensus that gay rights are human rights will take longer. Time is not on the side of gay people living in terror in places like Chechnya."

"Over for Dinner on Thursday"; Bizarro, 11/21/16

Dan Piraro, Bizarro; "Over for Dinner on Thursday"

Gay and Transgender Egyptians, Harassed and Entrapped, Are Driven Underground; New York Times, 8/10/16

Liam Stack, New York Times; Gay and Transgender Egyptians, Harassed and Entrapped, Are Driven Underground:

"Mr. Long said that online entrapment had become especially effective in the last two years, because the shutdown of gay-friendly spaces had left many with no place to go.

“There aren’t many queer places left in downtown or in the rest of the city, so people become more reliant on apps and social networks,” he said. “People are lonely and they meet someone who seems like they’re interested, and bang, they’re arrested.”

Ali agreed that despite the dangers, the internet was one of the few public spaces left for gay and transgender people.

“There is no other way,” Ali said. “It is Egypt.”"