23.Jun
June 23rd, 2021
You know this time of year: rainbow flags hang all over the place, crowds of happy people celebrate their basic right to be who they are. Well, that is if you live in parts of the world that tolerate LGBTQ people. You know that Russia is not that kind of place, and its small southern republic of Chechnya is even worse.
Chechnya made headlines in 2017 and 2019, when independent media uncovered a state-run campaign of mass arrests of gay people. Security forces reportedly kidnapped over 120 suspected homosexuals and tortured them in order to extract a confession of something that’s not considered a crime even in Chechnya. At least five of them are presumed dead.
The purge mostly targeted men, but women are in danger just as much. On 4 June, 22-year-old Khalimat Taramova fled Chechnya with the help of LGBTQ activists to seek refuge in the neighboring Dagestan. According to her friends, Taramova had been constantly beaten up by her husband and relatives — apparently, for being lesbian. In just six days, the safehouse in Makhachkala, where Taramova and other women suffering domestic abuse took shelter, was stormed by a group of men. Among them were Chechen police and the young woman’s father, a former official and the owner of one of the biggest malls in Chechnya.
In the following days, activists have managed to create enough noise to make the authorities reluctantly show Taramova to the world. A local TV station in Chechnya aired a 35-minute feature, explaining that Khalimat was perfectly fine and simply fell victim to evil forces attempting to crush traditional values of the Chechen people. The young woman herself got two minutes of screen time, standing near her father’s chair, appearing extremely frightened.
“The girl has learnt the hard lesson, and she promises to not get involved with shady individuals, who, acting as psychologists, fooled her and nearly destroyed her life,” the feature says.
Ramzan Kadyrov — an Islamist fighter-turned-Chechen leader – had famously stated that there are no gay people in Chechnya, and if there were any, their relatives would kill them. Not to imply that the most feared man in Russia isn’t a reliable source, but Google Trends provides a different picture. Over the past year, the Chechen Republic has been the leader among over 80 regions of Russia using the “gay sex” search query. Every week, a few Chechens educate themselves about the forbidden topic, risking their lives for this simple act.
A couple thousand miles to the north, I walk the streets of St. Petersburg, watching girls holding hands, and occasional guys wearing makeup. At first, I found it hard to believe that I’m in the same country as Chechnya. In a split second, the realisation kicks in: it is the same country. The one where “homosexual propaganda” is a criminal offense. The one where the authorities persecute support groups that attempt to explain LGBTQ teens that they are perfectly normal people.
Yet, it’s the same country that adores pop stars who are very visibly queer but too afraid to come out. Like many absurdities of Russian life, it sends my head spinning. The hypocrisy of politicians widely rumored to be homosexual who adopt anti-gay legislation. The indifference to a medieval campaign of mass arrests and murder of people guilty of having consensual sex with members of their own gender. It makes me wonder, who’s gonna be the next big bad Other to face the wrath of the state?
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