Lawyers call unprecedented gay Maxim Lapunov's complaint to ECtHR

The complaint lodged by Maxim Lapunov about torture in Grozny was the first case of persecution based on one's sexual orientation in Chechnya that has reached the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the lawyers of the Committee against Torture (CaT) and the Russian LGBT Network have stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 16, 2017, Maxim Lapunov, a native of the Omsk Region, stated that he had been detained in Chechnya on suspicion of homosexuality and beaten up at a police station. Later Lapunov was forced to leave Russia because of threats.

On May 24, 2019, representatives of Maxim Lapunov, who was tortured in Chechnya because of his sexual orientation, filed a complaint with the ECtHR about the violation of his rights, the Russian LGBT Network reports.

The Lapunov's case stands out of a number of torture cases in Chechnya in that it is about discrimination based on one's sexual orientation, said Olga Sadovskaya, a CaT's lawyer.

The Lapunov's complaint has good chances to be satisfied at the ECtHR, Veronika Lapina, a lawyer of the Russian LGBT Network, believes. She also noted that the Lapunov's case is the only one of its kind.

"The ECtHR received hundreds of lawsuits about authorities' inaction in Chechnya, but the link with one's sexual orientation and gender identity is unprecedented," she has explained.