To many in the advanced, modern, western world, being gay isn't a problem. According to the UN almost the entire of the Americas support homosexuality, Europe certainly, Australia and New Zealand yes, but the problem still lies within large parts of Africa and Asia.
Russia is particularly vocal on such matters, and although same-sex activity was decriminalised in 1993, a lot of laws and protections do not apply to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender people.
This year it has already rated the Beauty And The Beast as a 16+ film due to a possible gay inference (and believe me, that 'gay inference' involves two men touching hands in a dancing scene - pathetic)
Only last week did the country ban the mocked image of President Vladimir Putin in drag. In a list of 4,074 banned 'extremist' images, number 4,071 states the poster, which depicts Putin with painted eyes and lips, implies: "The supposed nonstandard sexual orientation of the president of the Russian Federation."
You mean this one, Vladimir?
But now reports, coming from the Russian state of Chechnya, which borders Georgia, are claiming that more than 100 gay men are being held in concentration camps.
Russian newspaper Novoya Gazeta reports that prisoners are said to have been beaten and electrocuted in attempts to get them to reveal the whereabouts of other homosexuals in the region.
At least three are said to have been killed.
The investigative newspaper reported a former military headquarters in the town of Argun is the suspected site of the camp.
It said that it had confirmed the information with sources from within the Chechen police and government but gave no further details.
The report has since been denied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's spokesman, who suggested there are no homosexuals at all in the region.
According to state news agency, RIA Novosti, the spokesman said: "It's impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic.
"If there were such people in Chechnya, law-enforcement agencies wouldn't need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning."
This wouldn't be the first controversy that Kadyrov has been involved in. He's known for extensive human right violations.
The suspected base. Credit: Google Maps
Advert
Tanya Tokshina of Human Rights Watch said: "For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya.
"Law enforcement and security agency officials under control of the ruthless head of the Chechen Republic... have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing, and humiliating the victims.
"Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began."
It would appear that gay people in Chechnya are in danger within the Russian province, although the Kremlin (Russia's version of the Houses Of Parliament) said that is not aware of this.
There needs no reminder of the atrocities that Hitler brought with his concentration camps during World War Two.
An estimated 11 million people died during his acts, 6 million of which were Jewish.
A similar-style approach seems to be happening here, only with a different discriminatory line.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Lesbian, transgender, Gay, Russia
