Reporter who broke news of Chechnya’s gay purge in hiding: 'They declared a Jihad on all journalists at Novaya Gazeta.' (PinkNews).
The Russian journalist who broke the news of Chechnya’s homophobic purge has been forced into hiding after the region’s largest mosque declared jihad.
Speaking to the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire, Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina, who authored the reports, revealed that she has been forced into hiding in the wake of the story.
Ms Milashina, who is usually based in Moscow, is currently in an undisclosed location.
She said: “They reacted [to the story] in a terrifying manner… on April 3, in the biggest mosque in Grozny, 15,000 people came together and declared a Jihad on us… not just me personally, but all journalists at Novaya Gazeta.
“They said the people at the newspaper who raised this question have damaged the honour of Chechen nation and should be prosecuted.”
She explained: “We know about four secret prisons. Two of them in the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, one of them in Argun – this is the first secret prison we discovered where LGBT people were detained, beaten, tortured and killed.
“We got this information [a few] weeks ago and began to prove it. It’s pretty hard in Checnya, especially to rescue LGBT people, because they’re a very closed network. The region is very hard on those people and they have to hide.
“The Chechen government denied [the allegations], although they don’t deny that if they found this kind of people in Chechnya they would be killed.
“They don’t deny this, but they deny the secret camps and they have denied that they detained more than 100 people and killed some of them.”Read the full story here.
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"Radio Liberty" reports about secret gay prison in Chechen village of Tsotsi-Yurt https://t.co/SLHerZctUE pic.twitter.com/y71WkGcERK— Caucasian Knot (@CaucasianKnotEn) April 11, 2017
Fifteen LGBTs ask evacuation from Chechnya https://t.co/DxhmU8cGxm pic.twitter.com/TMXbsSzqY4— Caucasian Knot (@CaucasianKnotEn) April 7, 2017
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