The staff of Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and journalists supporting them have been threatened following the newspaper’s publication of reports about the abduction and torture of gay men in Chechnya.
On 1 April, Novaya Gazeta reported that over a hundred men believed to be gay had been recently abducted, as part of a coordinated campaign. Reaction from Chechen officials has varied from denial to thinly veiled threats.
On 3 April, 15,000 people including Chechen elders, public opinion leaders and Muslim theologians attended an assembly at the central mosque in the Chechen capital Grozny. At the assembly, Adam Shakhidov, a Counsellor to the Head of Chechnya, publicly accused the newspaper of lies and described its staff members as “the enemies of our faith and homeland”.
The assembly adopted a resolution that stated: “Considering that the Chechen society’s age-long foundations have been insulted, as have been Chechen men’s dignity as well as our faith, we promise that the real instigators [of this] will face retaliation, irrespective of where and who they are, however long this takes”. A recording of Shakhidov’s speech and of the assembly has been widely circulated on local state-controlled television and through social media.
Following threats to Novaya Gazeta, independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, which came out in support of the threatened staff, has also been threatened by the Mufti of Chechnya, Salakh Mezhiev.
Public calls for retaliation made by influential people in Chechnya have on many occasions been followed by attacks on the individuals concerned, including killings. Those who issued the threats have enjoyed impunity, and the killings and other incidents of violence have never been fully and effectively investigated. Among the victims of such attacks were Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, celebrated for her reporting on Chechnya, murdered in 2006, as well as human rights defender Natalya Estemirova, a frequent contributor to Novaya Gazeta, murdered in 2009.