Escape or die: The deadly crackdown on LGBTQ+ lives in Dagestan

Only one of the police officers was in uniform, and after showing his ID, he told Yusuf, who is using an alias, that he had to go with them to the police station.

“I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t fight back or scream for help because my relatives could hear me. They drove me from Izberbash to Mahachkala.” 

Dagestan is part of the North Caucasus region in southern Russia. Part of the region is Chechnya, a semi-autonomous republic notorious for the violent persecution of LGBT people, with neighbouring republics such as Dagestan and Ingushetia not fairing any better. 

In the police station, they interrogated Yusuf, asking him if he knew ‘Matvey.’ Matvey Volodin – a gay blogger from Moscow – was allegedly lured by police in Dagestan and forced to ‘honeytrap’ gay men in Dagestan for the police to arrest. “I said that I knew nothing about him. I hadn’t met him or contacted him online. I said that I had only heard that name from friends,” said Yusuf. 

They then began asking about his friends - how he met them and how long he had known them. They made him unlock his phone and scroll through his chats, Telegram channels, friend lists and bank transactions. 

“As far as I know, they didn’t find what they were looking for,” said Yusuf, adding that they offered him a “job.”

“I would have to work for them as a honeytrap for gay people. But I couldn’t do it. I would never do this. I think it’s better to die than to accept this offer. Suicide is better than selling my friends – or my people.”

After being released from detention on that condition, Yusuf luckily managed to escape Russia with the help of North Caucasus SOS (SKSOS), an NGO that has been assisting and advocating for LGBT people in the North Caucasus region of Russia since 2017. 

Aleksandra Miroshnikova, a human rights defender and media relations manager at SKSOS, told FairPlanet that the orchestrated persecution of LGBT individuals in Dagestan is unprecedented.

“We have seen cases of violence against LGBT individuals in Dagestan, but we have never witnessed institutional oppression from the police and the government. Right now, it’s becoming a systematic approach,” said Miroshnikova, adding that everything started with Matvey Volodin, reiterating that “people detained have done nothing else other than being in contact with someone who the police set up.”

Yuri Guaiana, a Senior Campaign Manager at All Out who is currently campaigning to raise awareness on the situation in the North Caucasus, told FairPlanet that while the number of people presently detained is hard to verify, “we know of at least 4-5 more people that have been arrested at the same time as Yusuf.” 

LGBT rights in Russia and the North Caucasus

The state of LGBT rights in Russia is at an all-time low after the Kremlin expanded its 2014 “gay propaganda” law that led to a ban on transgender people and has designated LGBT movements as “extremist organisations.”

Miroshnikova explained that in the legal sense, the expansion of such laws on the federal level didn’t acutely affect people in the North Caucasus directly as their situation had already been very precarious. However, before the restrictions, they had a chance to move to a relatively safer part of Russia and start a new life there.

“Now, this is no longer a viable option, and the only real chance for them is to leave the country altogether. 

“Our defenders can find themselves in legal trouble for trying to help LGBT people. Being found guilty of aiding 'extremist movements' is a severe offence which can land you an up to 20 years prison sentence.”

Miroshnikova added that these laws don’t affect people who lead “closeted” lives but mainly activist organisations. However, this can change over time, as it has in the North Caucasus. 

She added that Dagestan has always been worrisome as there were a lot of instances of domestic violence against LGBT people by their families, such as being forcibly admitted to bogus “conversion clinics” where patients were subjected to torture.

“However, for the last few months, we have witnessed for the first time in Dagestan anti-LGBT violence being implemented by the authorities.” 

Dagestan’s tactics

The tactics Dagestani authorities use to incriminate gay men have been particularly alarming as they are reminiscent of the tactics Chechen authorities used back in 2017, during a so-called ‘witch-hunt’ they unleashed against LGBT individuals where they rounded up dozens, detained, forcibly disappeared, and some were extrajudicially killed.

Guaiana explained that it works to arrest people and then confiscate their phones, check all of their private chats, and take screenshots of all of the messages and the names of the people the person arrested is chatting with, as it happened to Yusuf.

“This way, the network of arrests can expand widely within the community,” said Guaiana. Miroshnikova added that “in Dagestan, there is no particular reason given why you can be arrested, and the threat of torture, while detained, is extremely high.”

Miroshnikova further explained that the authorities have found various harmful ways to justify arbitrary detention. “In Dagestan, they often fabricate criminal cases. For example, suppose a person has intimate footage, even if it's with their partner, they will accuse them of manufacturing and spreading pornographic content, which is a criminal offence in Dagestan.” 

More sinisterly, the authorities have found a way to forcibly extract the cooperation of those detained to make more arrests. They will ask the person to work for them by reaching out to gay people in the community and arranging dates in a designated apartment where the police are going to show up and arrest them.

Guaiana said that in the case of Yusuf, the police thought that he would be particularly good at that because he is well-known and respected in the community, adding that, luckily for Yusuf, this offer provided a short opportunity for him to leave detention and escape. 

Who does the government target in Dagestan?

It seems the government targets a person based on their sexual or gender orientation and not political affiliation or open activism. 

Guaiana said that the crackdown is targeted against LGBT people, primarily gay men, solely based on who they are.

“We can assume that based on the methods they used to arrest people and see who they can find by chance based on the information they got by confiscating their phones or by setting trap dates. This is indicative that they are specifically targeting gay people.”

Miroshnikova also agreed that it is primarily gay men who Dagestan targets.

“We have received some help requests from lesbians, but they are mostly related to domestic violence cases and forced conversion therapies, not institutional violence”.

She further mentioned that there is not much information on transgender people, mainly because it is impossible to live there as an openly trans person, as their appearance immediately singles them out. The authorities would still treat them as male because they don’t distinguish between them.

“Also, the police are more brutal toward gay men and trans women -who they consider male- but tend to be less harsh toward women.”

Miroshnikova reiterated that it's essential to understand that there is no LGBT activism in the North Caucasus, as it's nearly impossible to be an LGBT activist or live openly as an LGBT person because it would have a significant effect on your life and the life of your relatives because of the threat of collective punishment.

“These people who already lead very close lifestyles didn't publicly speak about LGBT rights in the region. The fact that they are not even activists is scary because it means anyone could be targeted, and just living a discreet, quiet life won’t guarantee safety.” 

What Yusuf told the Fair Planet also vindicated that statement. “If the police caught or beat someone for being LGBT, they would never report it because we understand the consequences. It’s hard to leave the region. Some people remain deeply connected to their parents. In the Caucasus, even those who have the opportunity to flee depend on their parents.

"They can’t just leave everything behind and move on. And they can’t tell anyone about their sexuality. It’s forbidden. And you have nowhere to go if the police persecute you.” 

What drives these sudden anti-LGBT purges? 

The recent spur in anti-LGBT purges by the authorities after Matvey Volodin’s arrest was still shocking, said Guaiana, who speculated that the general situation in Russia and the use of LGBT issues for war propaganda has a significant role to play. 

“The right context for Dagestan authorities to crack down on the community has been created because they must have felt empowered due to the general hate campaign that is happening in Russia against LGBT people, regardless of whether this is going with or against Russian Federation laws,” said Guaiana.

Miroshnikova is adamant that Russia’s federal policy is what drives anti-LGBT purges in the North Caucasus.

“Even in 2017, when we filed several complaints about the situation in Chechnya to the federal government, they did nothing other than pretend that they investigated the situation. However, when a BBC journalist crew went to Chechnya and made a documentary on the issue, the authorities had to demonstrate that everything was under control and nothing was happening to avoid international condemnation. Still, since the war in Ukraine, the Russian authorities don’t care and don’t have to pretend they do, which in turn has emboldened the local authorities in the North Caucasus to continue with their purges and given that Chechnya already set a precedent, the rest of the republics have a blueprint to follow.” 

Dagestan and North Caucasus are now mostly inaccessible to foreign and even non-Kremlin-backed Russian journalists. Last year, Russian journalist Yelena Milashina and her lawyer were lynched by masked men in Grozny, Chechnya, after attempting to attend a court hearing of Ramzan Kadyrov critics, the Chechen president who rolled out the 2017 anti-LGBT law.

Yusuf also reiterated that the situation is horrific because of federal developments emboldening local authorities.

“Previously, police had not been oppressed by the police in Dagestan. There were no fake dates. It all was in Chechnya but not in Dagestan. And now it’s happening. And why? Because Putin, this man, literally permitted to kill gay people in Russia.” 

How are defenders responding?

With the landscape for defending human rights in Russia becoming as bleak as ever, defenders are continuing to support LGBT people in the region, even if it means they have to change the ways they operate.  

“When we started working on North Caucasus in 2017, we were one of the very few organisations to do so, as there were almost no resources on the ground, and working on this issue in that region is quite dangerous even for our defenders based in safer Russian cities,” said Miroshnikova, further describing that advocating for change is much harder now that most organisations and defenders have left Russia, and that those who are still left inside must operate undercover because it’s dangerous for them to do this work openly.

“LGBT organisations are now trying to rebuild their operational structure to function outside of Russia, which has been a big challenge. In the case of North Caucasus, we are used to working outside of the region due to the threats defenders have faced for many years, but now everywhere in Russia, one can be in danger because of their work.”

For people who managed to escape and find safety, the struggle continues, knowing that other community members back home are still at risk.

“I think the world should pay attention to the problem and take it seriously,” said Yusuf. “Other countries can help those in danger. In an emergency, people need the opportunity to leave the country. Because if a gay person in Dagestan is outed and cannot leave, his life will be at risk. In the Caucasus, LGBT people cannot survive; it’s escape or die. A gay in the North Caucasus is just a firewood for hell.”

Image by Raphael Renter.