Chechen Police ‘Kidnap’ Two Brothers in Anti-LGBTQ Crackdown

Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty ImagesMOSCOW — The Islamist insurgency in Chechnya was crushed long ago, but the harsh security services apparatus remained in place. Police routinely round up gay men, and reports of torture are well documented.In a new development, these police have now arrested ethnic Chechen gay men far from Chechnya. Security agents detained two brothers, 17-year-old Ismail Isayev and 20-year-old Salekh Magomadov, in a shelter in Nizhny Novgorod in central Russia earlier this month. The two brothers were active on social media, and posted LGBTQ and Pride symbols.Police brought both back to Chechnya by force, without any official allegations of a crime. Currently they are not allowed to see lawyers. Police depriving detainees of legal defense is a repressive method broadly used against opposition activists these days.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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