Watch: Russia Detains Gay Chechen Refugee at Moscow Airport
More proof of Russia's complicity in the persecution of LGBTQ people has emerged after a video shows a gay Chechen refugee being detained at Moscow Airport to be turned over to Chechen authorities.
As reported by Moscow Times, video shows Russian police detaining Idris Arsamikov, 28, just as he was attempting to board a flight out of the country.
Activists fear that Arsamikov will be tortured and imprisoned upon being taken back to the conservative, majority-Muslim Chechen region. Arsamikov was reportedly in Chechenya to bury his father, according to the North Caucasus LGBTQ+ support group SK SOS. He now lives in the Netherlands after being tortured by officers of the region in 2018 over his sexuality.
"The agent who came to pick up Idris at Domodedovo did not present documents to local police and refused to inform his lawyer about the detainee's status," SK SOS wrote. "We believe Arsamikov is now being taken to Chechnya, where he faces mortal danger."
On video, filmed by Arsamikov's lawyer and posted on SK SOS' Telegram channel, Arsamikov is visibly shaken as plainclothes officers take him away. The visibly shaken Arsamikov remains silent as the lawyer urges him to resist detention.
"The activist group said earlier it believes that Chechen authorities may have prepared charges of large-scale fraud against Arsamikov," Moscow Times reports. "It noted that similar cases are regularly opened against Chechen activists who are seen as disloyal to local authorities."
On Twitter, ABC news reporter Patrick Reevell wrote, "Horrible story from Moscow this morning. Russian police detained a gay Chechen refugee as he tried to fly out. Idris Arsamikov had already been tortured in Chechnya."
In a grim declaration, Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov, under multiple U.S. sanctions for alleged human rights abuses, has publicly denounced that there are "no gays" in his region.
However, reports have documented cases of what came to be known as a "gay purge" in Chechnya.
Russian authorities have echoed Kadyrov's sentiments.