Chechen Parliament refuses to consider HRW’s report on anti-gay purge

According to Delimkhan Jamaldinov, a spokesperson for the Chechen Parliament’s Secretariat, the HRW report on mass torture of people in Chechnya isn’t a serious matter and it doesn’t deserve to be discussed in Parliament.

“Media write whatever they want. So, we aren’t supposed to respond to everything. We don’t give a toss to what some corrupt journalists, fed up by Europe, write,” The Caucasian Knot media outlet  quoted Jamaldinov as saying on 26 May.

The government official has reacted to an influential human rights organization’s report,  under which the Chechen Parliament Chairman, Magomed Daudov, personally observed the process of humiliation and torture of those who were suspected of being homosexuals. The Parliament Chairman hasn’t commented on the aforesaid report.

At least three detainees identified Daudov as being present at the Grozny and Argun (approximately 13 km east of Chechen capital) detention facilities, watching how the police officials tortured and abused gay detainees – the HRW report reads.

On 1 April, the Novaya Gazeta (New Newspaper) published an article on mass arrests and murder of the LGBT-community members in Chechnya.  Later on, it reported about the existence of the so-called ‘secret prison’ for gays at the Argun detention facility. As the newspaper reported on 24 April, it sent Russia’s Investigative Committee a list of 26 persons, including some of the people rounded up in the anti-gay purge, who were held in unlawful confinement.