More than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such,” according to the New York Times, which cites the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The Russian newspaper says it confirmed the news with government officials and an analyst of the region also confirmed the news to the Times with her own sources.

Three men are known to have been murdered, although the real number is likely to be higher.

in almost every genocide, the first “act” is the rounding up and killing of a group of men, specifically.

In “root and branch” genocides they [”civilian men of ‘battle age’”] are often the first group to be separated out and massacred, paving the way for the murder of women, children, and elderly men. In more common articulations of genocide, however, they can be the only group slated for outright massacre, while women, children, and elderly men suffer a range of alternative fates involving rape, sexual exploitation, torture, forced maternity, murder, and expulsion.

Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and Prevention 

as the rest of this article explains this isn’t to say that men have it worst in a genocide, but that it’s important when you see a very common red flag for genocide to pay attention to the “conflict” in case any more markers of an impending genocide occur. 

Chechnya has opened concentration camps for gay men

Gay men arrested in a ‘purge’ in the Russian region of Chechnya are being held in concentration camp-style prisons, reports have alleged.

Early reports emerged earlier this month that gay people are being targeted in the region, which is part of Russia but has substantial autonomy.

Russian newspapers and human rights groups report that more than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such” as part of a purge. Several people were also reportedly feared dead following violent raids.

In a chilling response, a Chechen government spokesperson denied that there are any gay people to detain, insisting that “you can’t detain and harass someone who doesn’t exist in the republic”. The Kremlin denied any knowledge of a purge.

But reports have since emerged that the men arrested are being kept in horrific concentration camp prisons, where violent abuse and torture is common.

Based on interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors, Novaya Gazeta reports that a secret prison has been set up in the town of Argun to detain the men arrested in the purge.

One man who was released from the camp told the newspaper that he was subjected to violent “interrogations” at the camp, as Chechen officials attempted to get him to confess the names and locations of more gay men.

The officials also seized his mobile phone, targeting his network of contacts regardless of whether they were gay or not.

The camp was reportedly set up by Chechen forces in a former military headquarters in the town.

The newspaper reports allegations that the Speaker of the Parliament of Chechnya was among officials to visit the site, though the claims have not been substantiated.

The detainees face electric shock torture and violent beatings, while some of them have been held to ransom and used to extort their families.

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch wrote: “For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya.

She continued: “Law enforcement and security agency officials under control of the ruthless head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing and humiliating the victims.

“Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began.”

She added: “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.

“It is difficult to overstate just how vulnerable LGBT people are in Chechnya, where homophobia is intense and rampant.

“LGBT people are in danger not only of persecution by the authorities but also of falling victim to ‘honour killings’ by their own relatives for tarnishing family honour.”

What Can We Do?

Alexander Artmyev from Amnesty International spoke to Metro.co.uk.

He said that people who are not in Russia can help by joining the charity’s Urgent Action on Chechnya.

The action encourages people to write in Russian or your own language to Chairman of the Investigation Committee and Acting Head of the Investigation Committee for the Chechen Republic.

A robot who doesn’t like one scientist because it thinks her hair is stupid.

A robot that finds logical paradoxes meant to disable it incredibly funny as if they’re jokes and comes up with its own.

A robot that develops a deep interest with a random trivial object like doorbells, dice, or ribbons and devotes a lot of its processing power to studying them. Fascinating.

A robot that was broken down for a while until some animal nested inside it and after it was repaired it was honored that an organic creature chose it as its shelter.

In a nutshell, it’s much more efficient to sell things to people if you can divide them up into tightly defined subcategories that have no interests in common; that way, you never risk accidentally competing with yourself.

This is why children’s toys (and toy sales channels) are actually much more strongly gendered these days than they were forty, thirty, even twenty years ago: one of the basic market segregation splits they’ve decided to use is “boys versus girls”.

Ever wonder why you see Avengers t-shirts that leave Black Widow out of the group shot, or Guardians of the Galaxy action figure lines with no Gamora? That’s market segregation in action.

The upshot is that shows with crossover appeal can actually be cancelled for being too popular with girls; they’re viewed as “stealing” the female market from the specifically girl-targeted media that rightfully “owns” it.

This is the sort of thing folks are talking about when they say gender roles are socially constructed, by the way. The gender split in media merchandising? It’s not just artificial, it’s deliberately imposed as a top-down marketing strategy. When folks try to justify it by saying “this is the ways it’s always been” or “this is just what the market wants”, they’re lying through their teeth - this is, in fact, the merchandisers dictating to the market what it wants in order to sell stuff more efficiently.

Paul Dini, a writer/producer said this on a podcast: “ That’s the thing, you know I hate being Mr. Sour Grapes here, but I’ll just lay it on the line: that’s the thing that got us cancelled on Tower Prep, honest-to-God was, it’s like, ‘we need boys, but we need girls right there, right one step behind the boys’—this is the network talking—’one step behind the boys, not as smart as the boys, not as interesting as boys, but right there.’”

Cartoon network and Warner brothers deliberately made the conscious decision to dumb down their female characters because they want to push female viewers away. In fact, Tower Prep was cancelled because it had too many female viewers because the writers made too many well written female characters.

So shitty representation of girls isn’t something that just happens. It’s the result of deliberate planning just so the execs can make more money.

And it’s not just cartoon network. I mean, why do you think Nick fucked over Korra so badly? Remember them telling Bryke they didn’t want a female Avatar? Why do you think there are no Korra figurines or action figures?

GIVEAWAY TIME!

I decided to do a random book giveaway because I want to. That’s all.

Rules:

Must be following bookandwords aka me

Your country must be eligible for shipping through book depository. You can check here.

Have to be willing to give me your address if you happen to win, make sure you have permission from a parent/guardian if you’re a young one

This giveaway will end on March 30th because that’s my birthday and I don’t want to wait too long for this giveaway to end. I want to give away books soon :)

Winner can chose any book or books from the book depository that are $20 USD or less

I can’t think of any more rules but I’m sure I forgot something. Edits may come.