The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned several Chechen officials and a law enforcement agency in relation to a new wave of persecution of gay men in the southern Russian Republic: Abuzayed Vismuradov, the Terek Special Rapid Response Team (a special division of first responders), Sergey Leonidovich Kossiev, Ruslan Geremeyev.
Radio Free Europe reports: ‘The individuals targeted were sanctioned under the 2012 Magnitsky Act. That law, and a wider one passed four years later, gives U.S. officials the authority to sanction people and entities for human rights abuses in Russia and around the world. The Russian Embassy in Washington said that the U.S. sanctions would be met with “reciprocal measures,” according to the state-run TASS news agency.'
From the Treasury Department:
Today, OFAC also designated Abuzayed Vismuradov (Vismuradov) for being responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals seeking to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the Government of the Russian Federation, or to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic elections, in Russia. As the commander of the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in the Chechen Republic, Vismuradov was in charge of an operation that illegally detained and tortured individuals on the basis of their actual or perceived LGBTI status.
OFAC also designated the Terek Special Rapid Response Team for being responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals seeking to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the Government of the Russian Federation, or to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic elections, in Russia. Fighters of the Terek Special Response Team detained and tortured persons they believed to be LGBTI, sometimes after the individuals were lured to meetings using social media.
Sergey Leonidovich Kossiev (Kossiev) is also being designated by OFAC for being responsible for extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals seeking to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic elections, in Russia. As the head of the Corrective Colony 7 (IK-7) penal colony in the Republic of Karelia, Kossiev oversaw and participated in the beatings and abuse of prisoners. Kossiev oversaw and participated in the beatings and abuse of prisoners, and attempted to conceal the evidence of such abuse.
Finally, OFAC is designating Ruslan Geremeyev (Geremeyev) for acting as an agent of or on behalf of Head of Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov in a matter relating to extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals seeking to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic election in Russia. OFAC designated Ramzan Kadyrov pursuant to the Magnitsky Act on December 20, 2017. Geremeyev is a former deputy commander of the Sever Battalion in Chechnya, which is considered part of Kadyrov's personal guard. Russian investigators twice tried to bring charges against Geremeyev as the possible organizer of Boris Nemtsov's murder, but were blocked by the head of the Investigations Committee.
At least 23 men were detained between December and April, according to the Russia LGBT Network.
HRW reported: ‘Human Rights Watch interviewed four men who were detained for between three and 20 days, between December 2018 and February 2019, at the Grozny Internal Affairs Department compound. Police officials there kicked them with booted feet, beat them sticks and polypropylene pipes, and tortured three of the four with electric shocks. One was raped with a stick. The men's accounts are consistent with a crime report filed on January 29 with Russia's chief investigative agency by the Russian LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) Network, a prominent LGBT rights group, which stated that in December and January, police in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, rounded up and abused 14 men. The report suggested that the true scope of detentions was broader.'
The men told Human Rights Watch that police took their cell phones and then ordered them under torture to identify other gay men, sometimes with photographs. One man told the group that police outed him to his family and then urged them to kill him. They also demanded cash ransom for their releases.
Interviewees offered matching descriptions of their captors and the facilities in which they were tortured, said they were denied food and water and forced to shave facial hair and the heads of other inmates.
HRW added: “Police officers also humiliated them by probing into the details of their lives, using homophobic slurs, exposing them as gay to other inmates, and forcing them to undress. Police also forced several of the presumed gay inmates to clean the toilet and wash floors and doors along a corridor, making it clear to them and the other inmates that the gay detainees were given ‘women's work' as a form of humiliation. Two of the interviewees said they were held mostly in a large cell with some 40 other inmates on the fourth floor of a building on the police department compound. During their time in confinement, they encountered five other inmates detained and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment because of their presumed sexual orientation.”
Chechen authorities have denied the new wave of persecution and Russian authorities have not commented.
