Russia tells the UN there are no gay people in Chechnya

In its annual Universal Periodic Review in front of the UN Human Rights Council, Russia rejected the idea that gay people even existed in Chechnya when asked about the atrocities that happened there. It was a year ago that news broke of gay men being rounded up, killed and tortured by authorities in Chechnya, an Islamic autonomous region of Russia. There has still yet to be any formal criminal investigation issued form the Kremlin, and many of the victims of the purge are still missing.

Acting Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov, who represented Russia at the review, said “The investigations that we carried out… did not confirm evidence of rights’ violations, nor were we even able to find representatives of the LGBT community in Chechnya… Please, help us do this and find them.”

Konovalov’s comments echo that of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who said at the time of the purge that gay people didn’t exist in his country.

Russia LGBT Network’s chairperson, Mikhail Tumasov, said the inaction from the government is inspiring more homophobic attacks: “The government has not responded clearly to condemn the violence and we can see how that could be an inspiration for homophobic groups… It’s important that for the government to say clearly, that LGBT people are a social group and they should be protected.”

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