Video - Inside The Chechnya Prison Where Gay Men claim They Were Tortured.

As international attention narrows on the alleged persecution, torture and killing of homosexual men in Chechnya, VICE News Tonight reports from the conservative Muslim republic - meeting Kheda Saratova, a human rights advisor to the Kadyrov regime, and touring the prison allegedly used to detain and abuse the accused.More here.

Reporter who broke news of Chechnya’s gay purge in hiding: 'They declared a Jihad on all journalists at Novaya Gazeta.'

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.

Related:

"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

Transgender woman's Burned & mutilated body found in 'Islamist' Turkey.

Transgender woman's Burned & mutilated body found in 'Islamist' Turkey. (Mirror).

 The badly-burned body of a young transgender woman who went missing last week has been found BURNT by the side of a road in Istanbul.

It is the latest in a series of hate crimes in Turkey shocking the LGBT and international community.
Sex worker Hande Kader was last seen getting into a client's car - and her partner raised the alarm and filed a missing persons' report when she did not return last week.

Despite being badly mutilated, the 22-year-old's body - found in the upmarket neighbourhood of Zekeriyakoy - was finally identified by prosthetics at the city morgue.

Politically active, Kader had been photographed participating in protests and demonstrations for LGBT rights.

The chilling incident comes less than two weeks after the murder and decapitation of a gay Syrian refugee just a few miles from where Kader's body was found.

Although Turkey is traditionally seen as one of the most tolerant countries in the region, a recent poll by PEW Research Centre showed that almost 80% of Turks believe homosexuality is "morally unacceptable". Hmmm....lets give those 80% = 64 Million free visa travel to Europe. Read the full story here.

Related: August 04 2016. Turkey - Gay Syrian refugee murdered and decapitated in Istanbul.

Turkey - Gay Syrian refugee murdered and decapitated in Istanbul.

Turkey - Gay Syrian refugee murdered and decapitated in Istanbul. (lgbtinewsturkey).

Syrian gay refugee Muhammed Wisam Sankari left his house in Aksaray on the night of 23 July. He was found dead in Yenikapi on 25 July. He was beheaded and his body mutilated beyond identification. Wisam’s killers have not been caught. Wisam, who was previously threatened, kidnapped by a crowded group of men, and raped, was trying to go to another country as a refugee because his life was in danger. After the murder, we listened to Wisam’s housemates Rayan, Diya and Gorkem tell us about what Wisam went through, what it is like to be an LGBTI refugee in Turkey, and the problems refugees face. They spoke to KaosGL.org about the murder that was so clearly in the making, how the authorities did not take any preventive measures, and their anxieties about “who is next”.

Rayan, who has known Wisam for a year, says “He was feeling very insecure recently. When we asked him, he would not tell us much” and explains that Wisam had been threatened and kidnapped before. He said they had difficulties even walking on the streets of Aksaray where they lived and where crowded male groups wielding knives had threatened them several times, saying they wanted to rape them. According to Rayan, Wisam experienced the following:

“We were staying in a different house before and we had to leave that house just because we are gay. People around would constantly stare at us. We did not do anything immoral? About five months ago, a group kidnapped Wisam in Fatih. They took him to a forest, beat him and raped him. They were going to kill him but Wisam saved himself by jumping at the road. We complained to the Police Headquarters but nothing happened.”

Gorkem is also Wisam’s friend and he was among the people who went to identify the body after Wisam was killed. Gorkem tells the story of Wisam’s disappearance and the news of his death in tears:

“That night Wisam left the house. We were already anxious because of the threats. We told him not to go but he said he was going out for 15-20 minutes. He didn’t come home all night. The next day, we panicked when we couldn’t reach him. We went to the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (ASAM). They directed us to Fatih Police Headquarters. We did not even know how to get there or what to say.
“On Sunday police called us. We went to Yenikapi with Rayan. They had cut Wisam violently. So violent that two knives had broken inside him. They had beheaded him. His upped body was beyond recognition, his internal organ were out. We could identify our friend from his pants.”

Diya says they live in fear and with the thought of “who is next” following Wisam’s death and says they are afraid to go out on the street:

“I am so scared. I feel like everyone is staring at me on the street. I was kidnapped twice before. They let me go in Cerkezkoy and I barely got home one time. I went to the UN for my identification but they did not even respond to that. No one cares about us. They just talk. I get threats over the phone. I speak calmly so something does not happen. It does not matter if you are Syrian or Turkish, if you are gay you are everyone’s target. They want sex from you and when you don’t they just tag along. I don’t have identification, who would protect me? Who is next?”

Hmmm........2013:  Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called homosexuality a “sexual preference” and said it conflicted with the “culture of Islam,”

Gay couple ‘humiliated’ by Emirates staff in Dubai.

Gay couple ‘humiliated’ by Emirates staff in Dubai. (Independent).

A British gay couple were allegedly humiliated by Emirates staff at Dubai airport after being asked if they were brothers.

Lee Charlton, 42, from Manchester claims Emirates check-in staff laughed at him and his partner when they confirmed they were a couple while travelling from Dubai to Durban with their son Kieran.


According to Charleston, a woman working behind the check-in counter at Dubai airport gave him “quizzical looks” and summoned her manager after asking him whether either Jason or Kieran were his brothers.

The couple and their son were then taken to an airport back room and left there for two hours and told that their documentation would not allow them to enter South Africa. They nearly missed their connecting flight and were forced to rush across the large airport to catch it just in time, despite originally having a three-hour stop over.

The 42-year-old posted the complaint on his Facebook page, saying, “I am really amazed at the small mindedness of your handling team in Dubai. I have not felt so embarrassed like this because of my sexuality since I was younger. You really need to give culture training to your teams as Dubai is one of the biggest airports in the world and gay people who have adopted will become more frequent.”

“I could understand this with ground staff who do not work for Emirates but these were your handling staff. Please do something with this email I would be happy to help as I would never want anyone else to go through the same experience. It isn’t nice,” he added.

Emirates replied to the complaint, saying, “Hi Lee, we’re sorry to hear you feel this way. We’ll highlight your feedback to our Airport Service team for an internal review. Thanks.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Dubai and gay people have been handed jail sentences of up to two years in the past.

Video - Islam and homosexuality for Dummies.

This is absolute proof, that Islam is NOT a "religion of peace"...https://t.co/gecwhKiBBH

— Shellie Correia (@shelliecorreia) June 14, 2016

HT And Source: 

I'm hoping this is a hoax. Otherwise it's terrifying. https://t.co/8wo1cJYZ1R

— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) June 15, 2016

I did some research last night and I'm satisfied it's real. https://t.co/SkBegec3nb

— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) June 15, 2016

Ukrainian Nationalists Promise 'Bloody Mess' As Kiev's LGBTs Prepare To March.

             A video experiment in which a gay couple strolled around Kiev hand-in-hand.

Ukrainian Nationalists Promise 'Bloody Mess' As Kiev's LGBTs Prepare To March. (Rferl).

The battle lines are being drawn in the Ukrainian capital.

Activists supporting the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community are determined to hold a March of Equality on June 12. Many of Ukraine's nationalists and cultural conservatives seem equally determined to stop them -- even if that means violence and bloodshed.
Artem Skoropadskiy, a spokesman for the far-right Right Sector movement, predicted on Facebook on May 29 that "on June 12 in Kyiv there will be a bloody mess."

Mykola Kokhanivskyy, chairman of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), told RFE/RL that his organization feels justified in using violence to prevent "perverts" from marching.

"The majority is categorically opposed to letting these perverts publicly demonstrate their perversion," Kokhanivskyy said. "Since the majority opposes this, they shouldn't do it. We can go through the courts or use other means to ban it. But if this doesn't happen, then upset citizens have the right to use force against this illegal manifestation of perversion."

These are not idle threats.

Moreover, discrimination and violence are a daily reality for LGBT people in Ukraine.
"I have a lot of friends and acquaintances in the LGBT community, and I see how they are discriminated against on a daily basis," says Ian Gubskiy, who is gay and transgender.

"Some people can't even appear on the streets because they might be beaten at any moment. Literally yesterday, they tried to attack a friend of mine and we had to defend him."

This year, the story is shaping up similarly. About 600 people have registered to participate in the event, while some 13,000 people have endorsed a petition calling on the city government to ban the march.

Organizers said 20 members of the parliament and an array of Western diplomats have pledged to join the march.

Police have promised to deploy 6,500 officers to prevent clashes. Read the full story here.

Saudi Arabia wants that the UN cancels LGBT rights.

Saudi Arabia wants that the UN cancels LGBT rights.

Saudi Arabia wants the UN gay rights of the sustainable development goals pickup, reports The Independent. 'Gay rights are in conflict with Islamic law, "said the Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir.

From Independent:

Saudi Arabia is protesting any references to homosexuality in a sweeping new agenda for global development, saying it runs “counter to Islamic law.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told a U.N. summit of world leaders Sunday that “mentioning sex in the text, to us, means exactly male and female. Mentioning family means consisting of a married man and woman.”

He asserted his country’s right not to follow any rules that relate to any “deviations” from that belief as the world moves forward on the new development agenda.

The so-called Sustainable Development Goals include a target to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights by 2030. Some states like Saudi Arabia and the Vatican are concerned that references to “sexual rights” include rights for gay people.

Pink News reports that overt references to LGBT equality were removed from the final agreement. Read the full article here.