Grozny resident manages to leave Russia after being tortured because of his sexual orientation

Rizvan Dadaev, a resident of Grozny, who had been missing for a long time after his detention because of his sexual orientation, had been tortured in captivity for months. He has managed to leave Russia now.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in November 2022, human rights defenders requested a response from investigators to the disappearance of Grozny resident Rizvan Dadaev, who was detained in Chechnya after he had admitted his homosexuality.

The fact that Rizvan Dadaev is alive and safe has been reported by the “SK SOS Crisis Group”*, which helped the resident of Grozny to leave the country. In the summer of 2022, a video with Rizvan Dadaev’s interrogation was posted on the Internet: being under pressure, the young man spoke on camera about his personal life and sexual preferences, after which he disappeared.

It turned out that Rizvan Dadaev was released after spending several months in a basement of one of the Chechen law enforcement bodies. According to the “SK SOS Crisis Group”*, one of the factors for his release were statements by human rights defenders: law enforcers wanted them “to stop looking for Rizvan Dadaev and talking about him publicly,” although his relatives explain his release by “the advocacy of an influential person.” However, after his release, Rizvan Dadaev was threatened with repeated arrest and torture, so the process of his evacuation from the country was “long and difficult,” the “SK SOS Crisis Group”* reports on its Telegram channel.

According to the “SK SOS Crisis Group”*, the video after which Rizvan Dadaev was detained had been recorded not by law enforcers, but by “ordinary blackmailers,” who agreed with the young man on a date and then began to blackmail him. Back in 2017, Rizvan Dadaev was detained by the law enforcement bodies “due to his indirect acquaintance with Maxim Lapunov, the first person who publicly spoke about the torture” of homosexual people in Chechnya.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.