On the evening of February 15, a gay man from Chechnya, Idris Arsamikov, was detained at Domodedovo airport. A few hours later, local security forces came for him. Presumably, Arsamikov was taken to Chechnya, where he is in mortal danger. This is reported by the SOS Crisis Group, which helps queer people.
Idris Arsamikov lived in the Netherlands, but came to Russia for his father’s funeral. In the republic, Arsamikov was detained and beaten, but released and allowed to leave. On departure from Russia, the man was detained and informed that security forces from Chechnya were coming for him.
“According to the police, the detention is connected with “some problems in Chechnya.” Idris himself explains that he is being persecuted in connection with homosexuality. In Chechnya, he is in mortal danger,” the SOS IC said in a statement.
In my country blocked
present tense
SOTA correspondent, who was in Domodedovo, reports a conversation between a police officer and Arsamikov’s lawyer:
– I have to react (to a false orientation from Chechnya). If I don’t respond, I’ll be at fault.
“Do you understand that they will take him away and kill him?”
– But who will kill him, who needs him?
“He is being tortured for the third time, he spent a month in the basement. In addition, he has refugee status and a residence permit in Holland.
– Let him go there, what problems.
– You won’t let me!
– And how will I release it if I received the paper?
Later it became known that the Chechen security forces took away Idris Arsamikov in an unknown direction. According to the SOS IC, the operative who came for Idris to the duty unit of Domodedovo did not show any documents to the local police and refused to provide the lawyer with information about the status of the detainee.
According to SOTA, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Shelkovsky district of Chechnya, Khamzaev, who had previously tortured him with electric shocks to knock out a confession of homosexuality, issued an orientation on Arsamikov for his detention (still without the case itself).
The Chechen security official who took Arsamikov from the airport has already called him a suspect in a criminal case, the correspondent of the publication reports from the scene. It is reported that in Chechnya a fraud case is being fabricated against Arsamikov, with the help of which the man will be able to be taken to the republic in the near future.
Arsamikov was first detained near Grozny in 2018, as the Kadyrovites became aware of his intimate relationship with a man. Then he was kept in the basement and tortured. Arsamikov was able to escape and emigrate to the Netherlands.
