Gay men ‘electrocuted and strung up by legs’ in new wave of torture in Chechnya, says human rights group

Four men who fled conservative region say they were beaten and humiliated for up to 20 days with limited water

Gay men are being electrocuted and strung up by their legs in a new wave of torture in Chechnya, according to a human rights group.

Human Rights Watch said it interviewed four gay men who claimed they fled the conservative, predominantly Muslim region after police allegedly beat and shocked them with electric currents while they were strung up by their legs.

The international group, headquartered in New York, said the accounts made by the men, who were allegedly detained for between three and 20 days between December 2018 and February 2019, were consistent with a complaint an LGBT+ activist filed in January.

Also, in January this year, a warning appeared on social media urging all vulnerable men and women to flee Chechnya as it was feared a new “anti-gay purge” was underway.

In 2017, activists said more than 100 gay men were detained and tortured in Chechnya during a “purge”, and that some were killed.

There was no immediate comment on the report from Chechen officials, who rejected the allegations in 2017.

Human Rights Watch said in a report on Wednesday that the men it interviewed reported being beaten, humiliated and held for up to 20 days with limited water.

The four said interrogators also demanded information about other gay men in Chechnya, according to the organisation.

One man said he had been living elsewhere but returned to Chechnya to attend a family wedding.

In the evening, he met a man he’d connected with through a dating app, and police arrived and took him away. The man said he believed he was set up.

Human Rights Watch said it thought the 2017 mistreatment of gay men was not adequately investigated.

Tanya Lokshina, the organisation’s associate director for Europe and Central Asia, said: “The absolute impunity for the anti-gay purge of 2017 emboldens the perpetrators.

“We have absolutely no evidence these round-ups were sanctioned by top-level Chechen leadership, but the police officials clearly felt at liberty to hold and torture those men.”

Homosexuality is decriminalised in Russia, but animosity towards sexual minorities still widely persists.