In an interview with US sports journalist Bryant Gumbel (HBO) on combat sports, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said: “If there are gays [in Chechnya], take them to Canada. Please God, take them so that we do not have them here. To purify our blood. If there are, take them. ” “People are testimonies of torture for homosexuality by the Chechen police,” he continues, “They are the devil. We must get rid of them, they are not men … God punishes them for what they accuse us. They will have to answer before the Almighty. ”

In April, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta accused the Kadyrov administration of persecuting homosexuals, which was initially denied by Russian gay associations. However, According to Igor Kochetkov of the LGTB Network in Russia, in recent weeks, the Chechen police tried to organize false accusations ranging from burglary to terrorism against gays in order to justify their incarceration.

Chechnya is Russian since the 16th century. It is of majority Muslim Sunni population with a strong presence of the Sufi brotherhood of the Naqchbandis. It provides a large number of professional soldiers to the Tsar and then to the Red Army. When the USSR was dissolved, Chechen officers tried to carve out a state for them. The CIA, intervening in the conflict, supported the Naqchbandis who created the Islamic Emirate of Itchkeria on the model of the Afghan Taliban. Although not a local tradition, the Emirate massacred homosexuals. The current president Kadyrov is the son of the great mufti Akhmad Kadyrov who first supported the Emirate, then moved closer to Moscow and finally helped him defeat the Islamists.

Homosexuality was repressed in Russia only in the period 1936-1991, never by the Tsar or by the Bolsheviks. Kadyrov’s current Islamic policy comes as some Russian parliamentarians consider homosexuality a contagious disease by example and attempt to suppress its visibility.