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Russia asked to end alleged killings of gays in Chechnya
International organisations have urged Russia to investigate the reported abuse and killings of gay men in Chechnya.
Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported earlier this month that police in the predominantly Muslim republic had rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and at least three of them had been killed.
Chechen authorities have denied the reports, while the spokesman for leader Ramzan Kadyrov insisted there were no gay people in the republic.
The UN's high commissioner for human rights has now called on the Russian government "to put an end to the persecution of people perceived to be gay or bisexual ... who are living in a climate of fear fuelled by homophobic speeches by local authorities."
UN human rights experts said: “These are acts of persecution and violence on an unprecedented scale in the region and constitute serious violations of the obligations of the Russian Federation under international human rights law."
Yesterday, Michael Georg Link, director of the human rights office at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said that Moscow must "urgently investigate the alleged disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment" of gay men in Chechnya.
Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director and a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in Moscow, told the Telegraph: "We have received credible reports of the facility in Argun being used as a detention centre for the security forces not only for LGBT people but also other individuals arbitrarily detained by the Chechen security forces."
When originally confronted with the allegations, Alvi Karimov, a spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, told news agency Interfax: “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic.
"If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them since their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”
After two separatist wars in the 1990s, Chechnya became increasingly conservative under the late president Akhmat Kadyrov and then his son Ramzan, who was appointed by Vladimir Putin in 2007.
Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president's spokesman, said he had no information about the allegations and advised those who “in their opinion” had suffered abuse by law enforcement officials to report their cases to authorities.
"This advice is not only tone deaf and cynical, but reveals the lack of recourse available to victims in Chechnya," said Human Rights Watch.
"As with past attacks on Chechen dissidents, activists and minorities, Russia’s leadership can have no doubt of the extent to which Chechen authorities have violated human rights," said the human rights organisation.
It asked Western governments to press Russian authorities to "resolutely condemn what effectively stands for a mop-up operation against gay men in Chechnya."
Several hundred people held a rally on Wednesday night outside the Russian embassy in London, waving rainbow flags. One placard read "Love is love" in Russian.
In 2013, Russia introduced a controversial "gay propaganda" law which banned the promotion of homosexuality to minors. The move was widely criticised as state-sponsored homophobia.
At the time, Mr Putin said the law was not an attack on homosexuality, which is legal in Russia, but an attempt to protect children.