Today, the European Court of Human Rights handed down a ruling in the case of Maxim Lapunov, the only victim of Chechnya’s vile 2017 anti-gay purge who dared seek justice for the torture he suffered at the hands of local law enforcement.
Dishonesty can cost us more than our relationships and reputations – it has grave implications for mental health. Here’s what we lose when we let the truth slip away, and how to restore faith
“This Is A Government-Controlled Genocide”: ‘Welcome To Chechnya’ Director David France On Russian Republic’s Anti-LGBTQ Campaign Deadline 3/3/2021
For LGBTQ people in Chechnya, life has become a nightmare.
The Russian republic has never been very hospitable to gays, but in 2017 the Chechen government launched an outright purge against perceived members of the LGBTQ community.
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Since then the situation has only worsened, as witnessed in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary
Welcome to Chechnya, directed by David France. The film contains first-hand accounts from torture survivors who were spirited to safety through a clandestine “rainbow railroad” operated by the Russian LGBT Network.
Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine discussed their acclaimed documentary feature
Boys State along with Steven Garza, one of the 1,000 teenage subjects in the film who participated in the annual event at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Boys State program takes place over the course of a week in all 50 states, with thousands of high school students participating in mock exercises to build representative state governments from the ground up. Garza himself was one of the teenagers who ran for governor Boys State’s highest office and the documentary follows his campaign, from his arrival to the final vote count.
Gripping Documentary Chronicles LGBT Lives at Risk in Chechnya
By Gary Kramer–
Shortlisted in both the Best Documentary Feature Oscar as well as in the Visual Effects category, the urgent, cogent film,
Welcome to Chechnya, is now available on DVD and streaming services.
One of the most powerful moments in this documentary has a young gay man recalling his arrest and torture. When he went to visit a guy he met online, policemen hiding in the bathroom arrested and detained him. They tortured him in hopes of getting the names of other gay men. He was subjected to electric shocks and batons, and his nose was broken. He claims it could have been worse. (He describes worse; it involves a rat on a man’s back trapped under a pot that is heated.)