LGBT activist leaves Russia after Djambulat Umarov's comment on Instagram

Karolina Kanaeva, an activist from Mordovia, who stood in defence of Chechen gays, has left Russia after threats received from opponents of LGBT people. A wave of threats was preceded by Kanaeva's appeal to Ramzan Kadyrov and a comment by Djambulat Umarov, a Chechen Minister.

Karolina told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that she had never been to Chechnya, but a few months ago she turned over the Instagram to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kanaeva asked him a few questions about the persecution of LGBT people in Chechnya. Some time later, Djambulat Umarov, the Chechen Minister for National Policy, commented on Kanaeva's post, stating that "in the normal families of Muslims and Caucasians this [the presence of homosexuals] is nonsense."

Some time later, the Minister's comment was deleted, but Kanaeva managed to make a screenshot thereof; it is available at the "Caucasian Knot". According to Kanaeva, soon after Umarov's comment, she began receiving threats from other social network users. One of her posts in the "VKontakte" has comments as follows: "I hope she'll be slaughtered in the gateway"; "Let them better burn her down"; "Go and kill yourself!"

"Any such threat is potentially real and dangerous. I fear for my life. I left Russia because of these threats among other things. The problem is that investigators are doing nothing," Ms Kanaeva told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 29, 2019 at 07:14 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.