A Chechen man and two of his acquaintances have been abducted by the police because of their sexuality, local human rights activists have reported.

On 25 July, footage emerged showing Rizvan Dadayev, a resident of Grozny, being interrogated by an unknown individual who coerces him into admitting that he ‘wanted to meet a guy for sex’.

Igor Kochetkov, a human rights activist and former director of the Russian LGBT+ Network, said that Dadayev ‘may be in mortal danger’, citing the ‘numerous cases of disappearance and torture of homosexual and bisexual people in Chechnya’.

The activist said that he had sent a request to the Investigative Committee, Prosecutor’s Office, and Russian Commissioner for Human Rights, asking them to identify the individuals responsible for detaining the man and filming the video, to investigate the legality of their actions, and to locate and question Dadayev regarding a potential violation of his rights.

Kochetkov added that Dadayev’s acquaintances were afraid to turn to law enforcement agencies ‘for obvious reasons’.

According to SOS North Caucasus, a Telegram channel supporting queer North Caucasians and their families, Dadayev’s acquaintances have claimed that the police were responsible for detaining the man and releasing the video.

SOS North Caucasus also reported that following Dadayev’s detention, two people in his phone’s contact list had also gone missing. Their friends claimed that their disappearances were also related to their sexual orientation.

The group has warned queer people in the North Caucasus who have previously been in contact with Dadayev to avoid further contact with anyone on dating sites or other social media, claiming that police were using his social media accounts to identify other queer people.

They also warned queer people living in Grozny to avoid meeting people contacted through dating apps and social media in general, claiming that the police were using fake profiles to find queer people. 

‘If you’re currently in Grozny, we ask you to be vigilant, and to try to avoid meetings’, the group said in a Telegram post.