Russia’s ban on “gay propaganda” violates international law, Europe’s top human rights court ruled on Tuesday. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held that the ban was discriminatory and violated freedom of expression.

“Above all, by adopting such laws the Court found that the authorities had reinforced stigma and prejudice and encouraged homophobia, which was incompatible with the values — of equality, pluralism and tolerance — of a democratic society,” the ECHR wrote.

Life in Russia has long been unwelcoming–and at times, perilous–for LGBTQ people. According to Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta, more than 100 gay men in Chechnya, a Russian territory in Eastern Europe, have been detained in Chechan prisons. Some have been tortured and killed due to their sexual orientations. In an interview with VICE News, Ayub Kataev, a Chechan prison warden and head of the ministry of internal affairs, not only denied the reports of the imprisonment and abuse of gay men, but denied the existence of gay people altogether.

“My officers would not even want to touch such people, if they exist, let alone beating or torturing them,” Kataev told VICE News.

Since 2003, regional governments in Russia have passed variations of the “gay propaganda” ban, and in 2013, the ban was adopted nationwide. Three Russian LGBTQ rights activists, Nikolay Bayev, Aleksey Kiselev, and Nikolay Alekseyev, protested the ban between 2009 and 2012 at a school in Ryazan, a children’s library in Arkhangelsk, and an administrative building in St. Petersburg–some of the cities that had instituted a ban at the time. The activists were found guilty of administrative offenses and fined. After the activists unsuccessfully appealed the convictions to Russia’s Constitutional Court, the ECHR agreed to hear their case.

According to the ECHR, Russia’s Code of Administrative Offences was amended in 2013 with the ban that prohibited “the promoting of non-traditional sexual relationships among minors, … creating a distorted image of the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships.”

The ECHR held that the Russian government had failed to demonstrate how LGBT expression would negatively impact so-called “traditional families,” and minors, who the government claimed needed to be protected from non-heterosexual orientations. To the contrary, the ECHR asserted that the ban “embodied a predisposed bias on the part of a heterosexual majority against a homosexual minority.”

The decision was handed down by a seven judge chamber comprised of judges from seven different European countries. The chamber’s judge from Russia, Dmitry Dedov, was the lone dissenter, claiming that “a positive image of homosexuality adversely affects the development of children and puts them at risk of sexual violence.”

The ECHR ordered Russia to pay a total of 43,000 euros to the three activists who brought the lawsuit. However, whether that ruling will be followed has yet to be seen as Russia approved a law in 2015 allowing the country to ignore ECHR rulings if they conflict with the Russian constitution.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Earlier this month, reports came out stating that over a hundred gay men had recently gone missing in Chechnya, a Russian territory in Eastern Europe. The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta claimed that gay men had been “illegally detained, beaten, tortured with electric shocks” by officials. They were then allegedly locked up in secret prisons, including one former military facility. Now several media outlets have referred to these prisons as de facto concentration camps, after claims that inhabitants are regularly tortured and killed.

Though the exact situation is hard to glean, and proof would be hard to obtain, what is clear is that Chechen officials have a problem with gay people. The official response to the accusations is baffling–a spokesperson for the republic’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that the reports were “absolute lies and disinformation,” not because he condemned the atrocity of the reports, but because he claimed there are no gay people in Chechnya. “You cannot detain and persecute people who simply do not exist in the republic,” he told the Interfax news agency.

He also claimed that had there been “such people” in Chechnya, their families and relatives would already have sent them “somewhere from which there is no returning.” Chechnya is a strictly conservative region and the majority of occupants are Sunni Muslims. Kadyrov has been criticized previously for forcing women to wear hijabs in public places, encouraging polygamy, and starting two conflicts.

Reports Say That Gay Men Are Being Held in Concentration Camps in Chechnya https://t.co/E5orv8yzKV pic.twitter.com/l1Qh5josHX

— The Mary Sue (@TheMarySue) April 10, 2017

Human Rights Watch says the group has received information from reliable sources, including sources “on the ground,” that corroborates the information about detentions and torture. In a statement on its website, the group’s Russia Program Director Tanya Lokshina says that the number of sources and consistency of the stories leave her with no doubt that they are true. However, she wrote, she couldn’t reveal any details about the sources’ stories, for fear of repercussion against them.

People reacted strongly to the news and many questioned why this subject isn’t being given more attention.

Kadyrov denying gay concentration camps in Chechnya by saying ‘those people don’t exist in the republic’ is terrifying. Talk about this. pic.twitter.com/zs9yyxsqNo

— Meg V. Jones (@ItsMegNotMegan) April 11, 2017

What’s happening in #Chechnya today is literally what the Nazis did. Rounding up, torturing, and killing gay people. It’s abhorrent

— Ferenc G. Koszorus (@fgkoszorus) April 11, 2017

I’m calling on @nikkihaley to speak up against the reported #LGBTQ concentration camps in Chechnya. RT to join me. https://t.co/NM05ag67fA

— Sarah Kate Ellis (@sarahkateellis) April 11, 2017

A spokesman for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that the government would look into the matter, but didn’t provide any details about what would be done. He also suggested that any individuals that have suffered abuses should file a complaint and go to court. But that would be basically impossible to do in Chechnya. Lokshina from Human Rights Watch says,

These days, very few people in Chechnya dare speak to human rights monitors or journalists even anonymously because the climate of fear is overwhelming and people have been largely intimidated into silence. Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable.

One of the harrowing accounts explains how a man was beaten with a hose and tortured with electricity to confess that he was gay. He said he was locked in a room with 30 others and that security officials told him the crackdown orders came from the republic’s leaders. Gay people are also sometimes shunned and killed by their own families in Chechnya.

Gay men have reportedly started fleeing the region and deleting their social media accounts. For now the outlook is grim, but at least an LGBT group in St. Petersburg, where the gay community is relatively strong, has set up an anonymous hotline that gay Chechens can call if they need help.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Reports Claim that Chechnya Has Created Gay Concentration Camps appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

100+ Arrested and Three Killed in Chechen Crackdown on Gay Men

Over the past week, more than a hundred gay men went missing in Chechnya, the semi-autonomous Russian republic located in the southernmost part of Eastern Europe. The republic is predominantly Muslim and extremely conservative. On Saturday, a Russian opposition newspaper reported that the men had been arrested by Chechen police and confirmed that at least three had been killed.

After 100+ gays seized in Chechnya, human rights official says homosexuality=”evil every Chechen will fight against” https://t.co/dT6zu1NeGv

— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) April 1, 2017

Allegedly, the crackdown started after a gay rights group in Moscow applied to hold Pride parades in areas close to Chechnya. But the leader of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, said through a spokesman that the reports are false and impossible. In fact, he seemingly flat-out denied that gay people exist in the area. “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” spokesman Alvi Karimov said. He added, “If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.” These horrendous comments caused international outrage and gay men have started fleeing the republic.

LGBT activist handcuffs himself to Petersburg’s Akhmat Kadyrov bridge to protest news that 100+ gays detained in Chechnya, at least 3 dead https://t.co/V49WGZos45

— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) April 2, 2017

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: April 3, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.