Outrage Over Gay Concentrations Camps

A FRIGHTENING crackdown on LGBT people is allegedly taking place in Chechnya, and the world appears to be turning a blind eye to it, despite the warnings of history.

- Mark Wasserman

CONCENTRATIONS CAMP: the words evoke feelings of guilt, revulsion, despair and shock. Names from World War II like Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz stand as testament of the worst humanity can inflict upon its fellow man. It’s is an often overlooked fact that homosexual men were imprisoned in these camps with Jewish people, and sufferedsimilar fates as other prisoners. And now the hatred, bigotry and the prejudice of these historical horrors are said to be being revived, this time in Chechnya, a federal subject (a republic) of Russia. It is located in the North Caucasus, situated in the southern part of Eastern Europe.

News first broke in February this year that over 100 male residents of the country who were assumed to be gay or bisexual were rounded up and detailed by authorities, where they were tortured on account of their sexual orientation. The men were, and some continue to be, held in what human rights groups and eyewitnesses have referred to as ‘concentration camps’. The government of Chechen Republic is denying these atrocities are taking place, and a spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin has endorsed these claims.

The status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) rights within the Russian Federation has been the concern of human rights bodies the world around now for some time, with Amnesty International speaking out strongly against the transgressions.