World
Report: Brothers returned to Chechnya have been tortured
Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev fled anti-LGBTQ crackdown
The lawyer who represents two brothers from Chechnya who Russia returned to their homeland from which they had fled says they have been tortured.
The Russian LGBT Network in a press release it sent to the Washington Blade said Alexander Nemov on Thursday met with Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev in the jail in Grozny, the Chechen capital, where they are currently incarcerated.
“Previously the lawyer was being denied access to the facility under the pretense that the brothers had fallen ill with COVID-19 despite the fact that they were being held in solitary cells,” said the Russian LGBT Network. “The employees of the detention facility did not provide Mr. Nemov with any justification or legal basis for such non-admission.”
The Russian LGBT Network in its press release said Nemov “managed to talk to the detainees and they shared what had been happening to them, in other words — how they had been subjected to violence — and gave insight into possible reasons for the non-admission.”
Magamadov and Isaev said they were scheduled to appear in court on July 22.
“They were being brought there in the enclosed back compartment of a truck-like vehicle with no ventilation,” said the Russian LGBT Network. “Due to the heat Magamadov and Isaev felt sick, however, in response to their pleas to open the windows the employees of the detention facility escorting them started laughing and insulting the brothers because of their sexual orientation. Ismail then asked one of them to stop and that resulted in violent actions on the part of the escorting personnel.”
The Russian LGBT Network notes the brothers’ court appearance “was postponed with no explanation, although the defendants were brought to the court building and the lawyers were awaiting inside in the courtroom.”
“Magamadov and Isaev were never let out of the car and simply driven back to the detention facility,” says the Russian LGBT Network.
The Russian LGBT Network says Isaev was “put into a room with no cameras and rudely told how wrong he was, that he had no right to talk back to people who had authority over him” once he and his brother returned to the jail.
“After an hour of ‘conversations’ one of those who had been escorting us came into the room and started beating me — fists bumping into my face and body, and then, later, he tried to strangle me,” said Isaev in the Russian LGBT Network press release. “The deputy head of the detention facility who had been present during the entire ordeal only stopped him from strangling me — he dragged him away from me and I was brought back to my cell.”
The Russian LGBT Network says jail personnel earlier this month beat both brothers after they refused to shave their heads.
Magamadov claims jail personnel beat him on Aug. 11 after he refused to say “he cut himself because of a nervous breakdown, not because of violence he had experienced” when he refused to shave his head.
“They made me spread my legs as wide as possible and then were beating me for a long time,” Magamadov told the Russian LGBT Network. “I could not take it and told them that I would sign anything they wanted. After that they put me back in my cell.”
Isaev told the Russian LGBT Network he developed a fever after jail personnel attacked him on Aug. 12. Isaev says he “was visited by a case officer” on Wednesday “and it was demanded that he should not tell (sic) about the former events.”
“If he disobeyed, Ismail was told, his conditions would worsen and he would be put in solitary confinement,” notes the Russian LGBT Network.
The anti-LGBTQ crackdown in Chechnya, a semi-autonomous Russian republic in the North Caucasus has sparked outrage around the world.
The Russian LGBT Network says Chechen authorities in April 2020 arrested Magamadov and Isaev after they made a series of posts on Osal Nakh 95, a Telegram channel used by opponents of Chechen President Raman Kadyrov, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Chechen authorities reportedly forced the brothers to make “apology videos” after they were tortured.
The Russian LGBT Network helped Magamadov and Isaev flee Chechnya in June 2020 after their release.
Police in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on Feb. 4 arrested the brothers and transferred them to the custody of Chechen authorities.
National
LGBTQ Catholic groups slam Trump over pope criticism
‘Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate’
LGBTQ Catholic groups have sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Leo on April 13 told reporters while traveling to Algeria that he had “no fear of the Trump administration” after the president described him as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” in response to his opposition to the Iran war. (Trump on the same day posted to Truth Social an image that appeared to show him as Jesus Christ. He removed it on April 13 amid backlash from religious leaders.)
Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, during a Fox News Channel interview on the same day said “in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” Vance on April 14 once again discussed Leo during an appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Ga., saying he should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Díaz; and Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are among those who have criticized Trump over his comments. The president, for his part, has said he will not apologize to Leo.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” said Leo on Thursday at a cathedral in Bamenda, Cameroon.
Francis DeBernardo is the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization. He told the Washington Blade on Thursday that Trump’s comments about Leo “are one more example of the ridiculous hubris of this leader (Trump) whose entire record shows that he is nothing more than a middle-school bully.”
“LGBTQ+ adults were often bullied as children, and they have learned the lesson that bullies act when they feel frightened or threatened,” said DeBernardo. “But secular power does not threaten the Vicar of Christ, and Pope Leo’s response illustrates this truth perfectly.”
DeBernardo added Trump “is obviously frightened that Pope Leo, an American, has more power and influence than the president on the world stage.”
“Like most Trumpian bullying, this strategy will backfire,” DeBernardo told the Blade. “Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate. Trump’s actions are not an example of his power, but of his impotence.”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an LGBTQ Catholic organization, echoed DeBernardo.
“He [Trump] has demonstrated throughout both presidencies that he doesn’t understand the basic concepts of any faith system that is founded on the dignity of human beings, the importance of common good,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade on Thursday during a telephone interview. “It’s just appalling.”
Duddy-Burke praised Leo and the American cardinals who have publicly criticized Trump.
“The pope’s popularity — given how much more respect Pope Leo has than the man sitting in the White House — is a blow to his ego,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade. “That seems to be a sore sport for him.”
“It’s such an imperialistic world view,” she added.
Leo ‘is the real peacemaker’
The College of Cardinals last May elected Leo to succeed Pope Francis after his death.
Leo, who was born in Chicago, is the first American pope. He was the bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023.
Francis made him a cardinal in 2023.
Juan Carlos Cruz — a gay Chilean man and clergy sex abuse survivor who Francis appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — has traveled to Ukraine several times with Dominican Sister Lucía Caram since Russia launched its war against the country in 2022. Cruz on Thursday responded to Trump’s criticism of Leo in a text message he sent to the Blade from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“I am in Ukraine under many attacks,” said Cruz. “Trump is an asshole and has zero right to criticize the Pope who is the real peacemaker.”
Belarus
Belarusian president signs bill to allow LGBTQ rights crackdown
Alexander Lukashenko known as ‘Europe’s last dictator’
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday signed a bill that will allow his government to crack down on LGBTQ advocacy.
The measure that Lukashenko, who is known as “Europe’s last dictator” and is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, signed would punish anyone found guilty of “propaganda of homosexual relations, gender change, refusal to have children, and pedophilia” with fines, community labor, and 15 days in jail.
The House of Representatives, the lower house of the Belarusian National Assembly, last month approved the bill. The Council of the Republic, which is the parliament’s upper chamber, passed it on April 2.
Belarus borders Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Kazakhstan is among the countries that have enacted Russian-style anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws in recent years.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over its anti-LGBTQ propaganda law. Hungarian voters on April 12 ousted Viktor Orbán, a Putin ally who had been their country’s prime minister since 2010.
Senegal
Senegalese court issues first conviction under new anti-LGBTQ law
Man sentenced to six years in prison on April 10
A Senegalese court has issued the first conviction under a new law that further criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations.
The Associated Press notes the court in Pikine-Guédiawaye, a suburb of Dakar, the Senegalese capital, on April 10 convicted a 24-year-old man of committing “acts against nature and public indecency” and sentenced him to six years in prison.
Authorities arrested the man, who Senegalese media reports identified as Mbaye Diouf, earlier this month. The court also fined him 2 million CFA ($3,591.04).
Lawmakers in the African country on March 11 nearly unanimously passed the measure that increases the penalty for anyone convicted of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations from one to five years in prison to five to 10 years. The bill that Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko introduced also prohibits the “promotion” or “financing” of homosexuality in Senegal.
MassResistance, an anti-LGBTQ group based in the U.S., reportedly worked with Senegalese groups to advance the bill that President Bassirou Diomaye Faye signed on March 31.
“This prison sentence is unlawful under international law,” said Human Rights Watch on Wednesday. “Senegal is bound by treaty obligations that protect every person’s right to dignity, privacy, and equality.”
LGBTQ Catholic groups slam Trump over pope criticism
Grindr to host first-ever White House Correspondents’ Dinner party
Charlie Kirk Act advances in Tenn.
Belarusian president signs bill to allow LGBTQ rights crackdown
‘The Pitt’ stars discuss what season two gets right about queer representation
Trump budget targets ‘gender extremism’
Viktor Orbán ousted in Hungarian elections
How to navigate shifting tenant expectations
Court orders Pride flag to return to Stonewall
