One of the victims of Chechnya's crackdown on gay men finally goes to federal investigators

Speaking at a press conference today at the newspaper Novaya Gazeta’s office, Maxim Lapunov described how he was detained for being gay and held in Chechen police custody and beaten for 12 days in March 2017.

Chechen police reportedly forced Lapunov to reveal the names of other gay men living in Chechnya, and he says he was forced under threat of death to place his fingerprints on a firearm. “Every evening, they brought in a new ‘accused’ man into the prison,” he said, adding that he was forced to confess in a video recording that he is gay.

After going free, he fled to Yessentuki, in Russia’s Stavropol Krai, where police delayed and then dropped the case, after his wounds healed.

Maxim Lapunov has filed a formal report with Russia’s Investigative Committee about the persecution of gay men by police in Chechnya. On October 13, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova identified Rykunov as the first person to complain formally about human rights crimes against the LGBT community in Chechnya.

Igor Kochetkov, the founder of Russia’s “LGBT Network,” says his group has helped 79 people like Lapunov escape Chechnya.

Independent media outlets first reported a state-sponsored crackdown on gay men in Chechnya earlier this year, though Chechen officials have denied the charges, insisting that gay people do not exist in Chechnya.