All eyes turned to Chechnya in early April, after the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta exposed the kidnapping, unlawful detention, and torture of more than 100 gay men by the Chechen authorities. How did these purges start? What is missing from the prevailing media narrative? And how has Russia’s relationship with the republic affected what is going on there now?
In the second episode of our new podcast with EurasiaNet, Masha Udensiva-Brenner sits down with two experts to discuss the gay purges in Chechnya and the political context in which they occurred.
Guests: Rachel Denber, Deputy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch; Thomas de Waal, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe
