Riding the “Chechen Gays” scandal on a Unicorn

Featured image of a Novaya Gazeta reporter Elena Milashina, an author of the article "Honor Killing" receiving an International Women of Courage Award in Washington on March 8, 2013. Depicted here standing between the First Lady Michelle Obama and the Obama's Secretary of State John Kerry.

Years ago, President Putin was asked what he thought about gay parades.

He said that he respected human freedom in all its forms.

However, he had a job to do, and his job was to run a country.

“What’s the main problem of our country?” he asked his audience.

“It’s a demography.”

By Scott Humor

Indrik is a Russian mythological creature mentioned in many folktales and generally depicted as a lion with a horn, a unicorn, or a mammoth with its trunk raised. As the story goes, Indrik is the father of all animals and, being great in size and weight, lives in the underworld, walking down there back and forth with a regularity of a sun crossing the sky. For its size, Indrik was used to name Indricotheriinae, the largest terrestrial mammals that existed on the territory of Russia and Eurasia between China and the Balkans. Indrik is also believed to be an anagram for “edinorog” or unicorn. Indrika-beast also dwells in the Vedic tradition as a god of gods.

Russian Tsar Ivan the IV, who united Russia with large parts of Siberia and the Far East into a powerful state, used the image of Indrik-the-unicorn on his small state seal.

For Ivan’s role in collecting of Russian lands, he has been branded “terrible” by German and British historians, claiming this being the translation of Ivan’s nickname “Grozny,” which is not. Grozny is an adjective based on the verb “grozit‘” грозить, which means to “threaten” and also “to face one’s enemy.”Like in Alexander Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman: A St Petersburg Story” Отсель грозить мы будем шведу (And thus he (Peter the Great) mused: “From here, Shall we face the Swede), in reference to an upcoming war with the Sweden.

Monument to Ivan IV in Orel

Fortress Groznaya was founded by the Commander of the Russian Caucasian Army, General Ermolov on June 22, 1818. Eventually the town grew into a large city and became a capital of Chechnya, Grozny. The Western sources on the history of Russia translate Groznaya as “menacing,” which again is not correct. We use the verb ‘grozit’ to describe, for example, a possibility of rain during an al fresco picnic, a hardly “menacing” event.  It’s more like making a frowning face to prevent some unwanted course of actions. Any good dog would know what I mean.

I don’t know who and why named a cybercrime investigation firm Indrik. It’s less known to a general public than its parent, the Kaspersky Lab, but any cyber security specialist knows of it.

At least for the past decade, the Indrik company’s servers have been hosting one of the most poisonous neo-liberal Russopbobic publications out there called the Novaya Gazeta (New Newspaper).

As a simple domain search would indicate, novayagazeta.ru has an assigned IP Address 103.5.149.8 and is being hosted on a dedicated server in Hong Kong by the Indrik Ltd.,  subsidiary of the  Kaspersky’s Lab company.

Now, hearing a name Indrik one would immediately think about a mystical creature, and only after that about the military putsch in Ukraine, the crash of MH17, an election of Donald Trump as a president of the United States, RussiaGate, Podesta emails published by Wikileaks, the CIA and the deep state, CrowdStrike, FSB, espionage, aggressive minority groups overtaking power over majority, homosexuality, Chechnya and Grozny. A scoop of it being almost as wide as my Anthology of Russian Humor contains, albeit not as entertaining.

The most interesting thing that comes to mind is that arrested last year CIA agent operating as Shaltai Bolrai or Humpty Dumpty Ruslan Stoyanov, was a senior employee at Russian cyber security firm Kaspersky’s Lab and  served as the deputy director of Indrik. Before that he served as a major in the Russian Ministry of Interior’s Moscow Cyber Crime Unit. He was arrested in December 2016 on charges of treason and espionage for the CIA.

On April 24 this year amid of the gay scandal initialed by the Novaya Gazeta on April 1st, the ‘NG” also  published a claim that their special correspondent Pavel Kanigin found a retired military officer who allegedly recognized a voice on the “BUK tape” as his old fellow servicemen from twenty years back then.

The recording in question was an alleged mumbled conversation between two men about a BUK missile system.  The video with the recording was released in 2014 immediately following  the MH17 crash by the Ukrainian secret service SBU.

An independent expertise, conducted at the time, revealed the recording to be a fake, being put together from a different sound bites by the cut and paste method.

This May, while breezing in the powerful stench of democracy and freedom in the air, brought upon us by mudslinging neocons and neo-liberals, one might become absolutely overwhelmed by the attacks on one’s senses. It’s no wonder that many of us missed a swirling gay scandal in Russia. Lots of unseemly substances have been flying at the direction of the law enforcement and being dispatched back by them at the media. At the first glance, if you follow the trajectory of activists’ shots, you can find that their aim is a small peaceful prosperous and rapidly developing region of Russia called Chechnya, and its charismatic leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov is not only loved around the world for great sense of humor, and for his love of animals and fast cars, but also deeply respected in the Muslim world as a judicious politician, a peacekeeper, and a guardian of one of the Prophet Muhammad’s relics.

In spite of Chechen law enforcement being the main aim of the scandal, I am convinced that the true target of this orchestrated psy-op is the FIFA Football Championship that is scheduled to take place in Russian in June 2018.

Just like back in 2014 Winter Sochi Olympic Games became a target for “gay rights” activists in the West, who protested days before the Winter Olympics was scheduled to begin in the southern resort of Sochi.

Remember all those calls for boycott of the Sochi Games because of the Russia’s law prohibiting gay sex propaganda to children?

The 2018 FIFA World Cup championship in Russia fast approaching with the set dates from June 14, 2018 to July 15, 2018. Naturally, to poison this festive and peaceful sports event an old homosexual card is being played once again, since there is still time to prey this championship from the Russian hands.

If in 2014, it was lesbians in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, who played the leading role in destroying everyone’s festive mode, this time around it’s all about gay men. They are not even protesting against the football games, oh, no. This psy-op scenario has more gravity to it, since the crisis actors claim “abductions” and “mass murders.” They claim that hundreds of adult men allegedly disappeared and presumed dead, among them are Muslim clerics, professionals like barbers and waiters, and even two famous TV personalities.

So far, not one family reported missing members, no employers reported missing workers, and no TV viewers reported an unexplained disappearance of their “favorite” TV personalities. Gay scandals usually come with trillions of images, but not this one. In my research I found no identifiable related to the story images. The images used by the Western journalists as illustrations have been taken years ago.

It’s all started sometime in February of this year with a story of two waiters working for a restaurant in Grozny, a capital of Chechnya.

Before I tell you this story, please, keep in mind that, contrary to popular belief, gay sex between adults is not banned in Russia. There is a ban of making video and other materials depicting homosexual sex and distributing them on the media where children can see it. This is what is being called a “ban on homosexual propaganda to children” and it’s punishable by a small fine.

But back to our waiters who were kissing behind the restaurant wall in a dark alley after their shift was over, which happened to be in the middle of the night. They weren’t violating any laws, because they didn’t publicly display their relationships, on the contrary they were hiding in the dark alley behind the restaurant. Nevertheless someone videotaped them with a night vision equipped camera.  Someone who knew that they would be there and set up special equipment to capture the moment. It was premeditated and malicious, especially considering that after taking this video, a person immediately uploaded it on YouTube, using a freshly created account. In addition this mysterious person had some extraordinary capacity for promotion, because 100,000 of bots immediately spread this video to millions of Russian social media users. The operation was conducted with such professionalism that when unsuspected waiters returned home, they were greeted by a storm of phone calls and emails from friends and relatives and also from many strangers, since the mysteries person posted their names, addresses and contacts information with the video.

The video has been removed by YouTube after a few hours, but it was seen by at least half a million people. The reason behind his actions this mysterious operator claimed in the description was an outrage about the violation of public decency. Commenting on the social media people rightfully pointed out that the public decency was violated by the person who made and upload the video, and not by the waiters. Anyway, the waiters, who weren’t Chechens, felt violated, and went back to their hometowns to lick their emotional wounds. The restaurant owners explained via social media that they didn’t and wouldn’t fire the waiters, but that they never returned to work.

I recall seeing comments that the Police investigation of this incident was halted after they discovered that the IP address of the YouTube account that posted the video was located outside of the jurisdiction of the law enforcement of the Russian Federation, which is a cop’s way to say that it was abroad.

This would be the end of their story known to us, but inexplicable the tale of two gay waiters resurfaced as a part of the “mass kidnapping and mass murders” claims initialed by the liberal newspaper “Novaya Gazeta.”

Dateline for the “Chechen Gays” Psy-Op

• March 28, 2017 – an alleged attack on two crisis actors of this psy-op,  gay journalist and activist Sergei Khazov-Cassia and a cameraman for FE/RL in Krasnodar, South Russia. The Radio Svoboda journalists called the Police to report an alleged attack.
• April 1st, on April Fool’s Day, the “Novaya gazeta” posted an article titled “The Honor Killing.”
• April 2nd, the Radio Svoboda, the US government run and funded anti-Russia propaganda outlet posted the article titled, “Leading Russian Daily Says Chechen Authorities Arresting, Killing homosexuals”
• April 11 – Radio Svoboda reports that “Human rights groups and a major Russian newspaper (meaning the April Fool Day publication in NG) say that in recent months gay Chechens have been rounded up because of their sexual orientation, beaten, blackmailed, and even killed.” Report by Sergei Khazov-Cassia who posts an interview with three gay men. No names, or any other proof that these men are real and not a fruit of Sergei Khazov-Cassia’s imagination.  RFE/RL’s reporter doesn’t provide any evidence, like numbers of the Police cases.
• Monday May 15th – The announcement of the ICC complaint filed on the same day as the debate in the European Parliament in Brussels on LGBT rights in Chechnya.

“Etienne Deshoulieres, a lawyer representing the groups in the matter, said in a statement that it is the first time that the ICC “will have to deal with a genocide committed against homosexuals.”

• On May 17, another liberal publication, ru, reported that according to the head of the “Rossiyskaya LGBT” organization, 40 gays left Chechnya in the past month and a half. As a proof of this statement the newspaper refers to the publication of RFERL, “as reported by Radio Svoboda.” They quote the same anonymous interview of three nameless gay men written by  Sergei Khazov-Cassia, see below.
• On March 28, 2017  “Radio Liberty correspondents Andrei Kostyanov  and Sergei Khazov-Cassia claimed to be beaten in March 28 as they were leaving their hotel in Kropotkin, a town in Krasnodar Krai. They were there to cover a planned protest by farmers. The assailants seized personal belongings and equipment — some of which was later returned — and fled the site in a white minibus.” as it was reported by the RFE/RL’s.

The only wrinkle in this otherwise smooth story is that when the local police officers responded to the emergency they found professional equipment of these two “journalists’ in their hotel room. They later claimed that it was something else that was stolen from them, but couldn’t explain what exactly. The Police department spokesperson said that these two “journalists” got in a fight in a local bar after they harassed a girl there. Claims that Andrei Kostyanov  had broken ribs, also weren’t verified by the law enforcement. He was checked in a local hospital, judging by the police statement, but they didn’t verify that Andrei Kostyanov sustained any injuries,  despite of what it’s said on the RFERL web site.

Sergei Khazov-Cassia is openly gay, married to a French man, lives in Moscow. He also wrote two books about how hard is to be a gay man in Russia. Considering that he got a free Leningrad University degree from the “horrible” Russian state paid for him by the taxes of all those terrible Russian men and women who work far North and Siberia, mining oil, gas and gold in brutal conditions, building roads, cities, and air jets, harvesting crops and defending the country, so  Sergei Khazov-Cassia can use his free university degree to travel the world, marry another man and write fake news for the US government funded Russophobic propaganda outlet.

Unfortunately, for all involved, he, judging by his interview to the blogs dedicated to the homosexual sex (kvir.ru›articles/drugoe-detstvo.html) refuses to leave Russia, and prefers to wait for a ‘revolution’ or at least for a state revolt that would make things for gays easier. His words, not mine. He doesn’t explain what would better life for gays in Russia entail.

For those of us, who are still in a possession of our faculties, it’s immediately obvious that to stage an “attack” on the main crisis actors of an pre-planed psy-op is a standard operating procedure. How else you would attract public attention and outrage to a completely unknown journalist? Now, we have a gay journalist, reporting on gay life in Russia, being allegedly “beaten” by unknown assailants, two weeks after that publishing an interview with anonymous gay men, who allegedly left Chechnya and moved to Moscow because of mean Kadyrov, and not because of the gay clubs.

On May 16, the Members of the European Parliament debated the “persecution of homosexuals in Chechnya,” following an oral question submitted to the Commission.

Christos Stylianides, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid, said during the debate that “we have seen Chechen authorities implicitly justifying the violence and the Russian federal authorities downplaying it, dismissing the reports as exaggerations and fake news.”

He also said that “The persecution of homosexuals is the continuation of a series of discriminatory acts. The Russian authorities have taken no action to end this violence. The EU and other states have unequivocally condemned the choices of the Chechen and Russian authorities and call for a full inquiry, and [High Representative Federica] Mogherini has asked Mr. Lavrov to investigate these allegations. Unfortunately, Mr. Lavrov said the authorities had no evidence of these events.”

As it being reported by the gay propaganda outlet Euractiv, Sylvie Guillaume, a French Socialist MEP (S&D group), Parliament vice-president and member of the LGBT intergroup said that their reaction had been “rather delayed”.

The following groups took part in the debates, S&D group, supported by MEPs from the Greens, ALDE, ECR and GUE/NGL groups.

All of them without exception claim that they demand immediate actions towards the Russian government based on the following statement:  “Around a hundred people have been arrested and tortured in the Russian republic under the leadership of Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of state supported by Vladimir Putin, according to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.”

So far, not one Western news source or Western governmental body would translate the materials published by the Novaya Gazeta. Instead they all quote each other or their own articles using inflammatory statements like “Russia has death camps for gays” as if it’s a factual provable truth. No one ask simple questions like, “Why would Russia have a death camp for homosexual men, but not for homosexual women?” and “Why would the police kidnap and lock hundreds of homosexual men in one place and torture them, only to release them a bit later, and let them to travel abroad?”

Those who can read the Russian language or have a translation of this article understand, of course, that this article is peppered throughout by caveats like “anonymous sources,” “unconfirmed information,” “according to rumors,” and “allegedly. ” It also presents no hard facts like information about of alleged victims, and verified information that people have been disappearing en mass. As such, the NG publication has as much credibility as other tabloids claiming that a mermaid was discovered in a can of fish.

The sense of legitimacy was given to this article by the Western media and also female, Merkel and Nikki Haley, and gay politicians that I quote here.

As a prove of gays being under threat, a Novaya Gazeta reporter Elena Milashina uses a video titled “Video from Chechen Whatsapp” which is a clip from one of Sylvester Stallone movies. The last phrase in this video is, “If I were you, I wouldn’t have a gay parade in Chechnya.”

The video has been uploaded to YouTube on April 1, by an account that has no other posting. Comments are disabled for this video and it has been unlisted.

Judging by the logo on the video #100+100# it was produced by these guys, Mikhail and Arthur, two YouTube comedians from the channel 100+100 How to make a Million

Here they are playing football

And on this video they are coloring Easter eggs and learning how to dance the Lezginka

Here is the original link to their video posted on March 12. It’s not a threat as the Novaya Gazeta implies. This is how two standup comedians see in their minds the insulting situation of the LGBT community attacking Caucasus.

I also discovered a related video made by this duo and posted on March 16th, and titled “Gay parades on Caucasus is a lie and provocation”

On the video they decided to find an independent source of income, because they noticed that you have a sum of money and don’t work, this sum had a tendency to disappear. So they decide to open a flower shop, because they sold some tulips on the road and made good money. They offer to buy stocks in their company.

At 3:40: “Can we talk about gays?” ” I don’t want to talk about gays.” “But we should, because this attempt to apply for a gay parade here is a provocation. It’s a way to make money, because they plan to file a lawsuit in the European Human Rights Court that, of course, will decide in their favor. And they will be able to get money from our Russia, from our country, from us, for our refusal to allow this event. Maybe it isn’t true, and they are not doing this for money, but even the idea to have this parade is an insult for our region.  It’s not a very handsome move, any way you look at it, either politically or commercially. We don’t know what exact reason you have, but it’s very insulting and don’t expect any tolerance.”

After 4:50 they started to talk about their flower shop again and go to visit a local bar.

These two guys are funny, and, most importantly, there is nothing menacing about what they say. They are being reasonable and as nice as stand up comedians apt to be.

On May 11, the Huffington Post published an article quoting ‘the Russian LGBT Network” an LGBTQ rights group claiming that the organization has successfully helped 42 gay men escape anti-gay persecution in Chechnya.

“Over the past several months, disturbing reports have emerged that gay men are being detained in “concentration camps” in the Russian republic of Chechnya and are being subject to torture and even death by government authorities and even their own families.”

Claiming that “disturbing reports have emerged” they link to another Huffington Post article dated May 2nd and titled “Gay Men Are Being Rounded Up And Killed In Chechnya: Report ..” written by Nina Golgowski

Nina Goldowski refers to “The disturbing report from Novaya Gazeta”  that “More than 100 gay men have been detained and at least three have been killed by authorities in Chechnya, according to a Russian newspaper cited Saturday in The New York Times.”

Neither the Huffington Post, not the New York Times made their own enquires, or brought forward their own evidence. Instead, Nina Goldowski uses phrases like “according to Novaya Gazeta” and “as quoted in the Times.”

She uses as an illustration of her claims about the “killing” of gay men in Chechnya the image made by Maxim Shemetov for Reuters with the following captions: “Chechnya’s leader claims there are no gay people in the Russian region. A gay rights activist is seen being detained by police during an LGBT community rally in Moscow in 2015. ”

She doesn’t explain the connection between an image from an unauthorized opposition meeting in Moscow 2015  and the claims being brought forward by NG about Chechnya in May 2017.

In its April 2 editorial of the Radio Svoboda published under a barely visible disclaimer that the material is “Based on reporting by Meduza, Ekho Moskvy, and Novaya Gazeta.” Needless to say that Meduza and Ekho Moskvy also based their publications on the same Novaya Gazeta article.

The US government official propaganda outlet states as following: “The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reports that authorities in Chechnya are arresting and killing homosexuals.”

“The daily reported on April 1, citing a range of unnamed sources, that “more than 100″ homosexual men had been detained in Chechnya in recent days and that three had been killed.”

What makes the April 2nd publication of the Radio Svoboda being a key to this scandal is the following statement:

“Without giving specific figures or naming officials, the Novaya Gazeta report said that “information about detentions” of gay men had been confirmed by regional Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service (FSB), and prosecutorial officials, as well as LGBT activists.”

Contrary to what the Radio Svoboda states, the “information about detentions” of gay men had been investigated by the regional Interior Ministry and found it to be fake. 

What’s even more frustrating that while the Federal Security Service (FSB), and prosecutorial officials are still currently investigating the clams of abuse, their work has been delayed by an unwillingness of the Novaya Gazeta to provide any concrete evidence, and names of the alleged victims.

The reaction of the ‘human rights activists” and “gay right activists” has been similar. They outright deny of saying and meaning what the Novaya Gazeta claims they said and meant. They actually threaten to sue  Novaya Gazeta for defamation of their character and libel and slander.

Take for example a Chechen human rights activist Kheda Saratova. She is a member of the presidential human rights council. Immediately following the NG publication she gave an interview to a Moscow radio station “Govvorit Moscwa” (Moscow Speaks). As the Radio Svoboda writes, Kheda Saratova “told Russian state radio that the police and “entire judicial system” in Chechnya treat the murders of homosexuals by their relatives “with understanding.” She said that she herself would “not even bother considering” a claim regarding such a crime.”

On April 2nd, a human rights activist from Chechnya Kheda Saratova gave an interview to another radio station called Business FM saying that she was wrongly quoted and “misunderstood” during her interview to the radio station Govit Moscva (Moscow Speaks) in a wake of the Novaya Gazeta’s April 1sr post.  She said that she didn’t call to “kill gays” and that she was just shocked to find out that there are gays in Chechnya.

She told to Business FM that she “was so shocked, that she lost her mind.”

The following is my translation of Kheda Saratova’s statement to the Business FM

Kheda Saratova, a member of the Council on human rights under the President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov

“I first heard about this problem just before that ill-fated interview to radio “Moscow Speaks.” That gays exist out there in the world, I knew, of course, but I never heard that they exist in our society. I was absolutely shocked. Maybe I went even a little insane, when I was interviewed. I’m sorry, I said some phrases, that I shouldn’t say, for example, that families would not regret if something happens to these people. About this I’m really sorry.

At that moment of my interview I was shocked by this figure quoted by “NG” (the New Newspaper) — 100 people. I don’t call violence on anyone. I have spent 18 years on this job, and I’m trying to protect human rights using power and resources available to me. I’m not saying that we have no problems in our Republic. There are detentions, there are problems of a social nature, but I was 200% sure that this problem doesn’t exist and could not exist in our society.

Somehow in the news feed I don’t see any questions asked about the “Novaya Gazeta” publication. For example, why nobody considers that the newspaper just made unsubstantiated statements and posted some numbers without providing any facts at all.

Why is this newspaper allowed to defame people who have been detained by the law enforcement for different reasons, and who are not members of this kind of community? They are suffering in detention without being defamed like this.  Why is this newspaper allowed to stain the good names of the Chechen human rights activists and my name personally by falsely claiming that I called for murder and violence against these kinds of people? I never said this. I am certain that what I said was that we don’t have these kind of people in our society.”

End of the statement.

Another human rights advocates and Moscow LGBT community activist Nicolay Alekseev also vehemently rejects the insinuations made by Elena Milashina in her April Fool’s Day article.

“NG” claims that a “real manhunt” started in Chechnya in March, after Moscow LGBT community activist Nicolay Alekseev (Николай Алексеев)  made a public statement that they were going to stage gay pride parades in Chechnya and in other predominantly Muslim regions of Russia.

The following is a quote from the article, “After the “Novaya Gazeta” correspondent asked him a question if he knows that his statements about the intention to hold gay parades in the Caucasus cities provoked the persecutions of the local LGBT people, and even caused mass arrests and killings in Chechnya, Alexeev said that the correspondent of the New Newspaper speculates with an unverified information and uses unfounded allegations. “Personally,” he said, “he doesn’t know anything of such harassments especially as the consequences of his actions.”

Throughout this ordeal, Nicolay Alekseev maintains that Elena Milashina is a liar, and that everything she wrote is a disinformation. His statements, sprinkled around in different Russian language publications, are in fact a complete opposite to what the Radio Liberty calls a “confirmation.”  See above a false statement that  “information about detentions” of gay men had been confirmed by regional Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service (FSB), and prosecutorial officials, as well as LGBT activists.”

Not only  Alekseev denies the “NG” claims of gay “genocide’ in Chechnya, he is preparing to file a lawsuit against the newspaper and its author to defend his point of view in court. Very well known for being a highly litigious person, Alekseev promises some interesting days ahead for the “NG,” especially considering that the newspaper and its Western parrots blame him for the whole thing.

Consider, for example, that according to the Huffington Post,:”The mass detention of gay men is said to have followed attempts by gay rights groups to stage pride parades in cities across the country. The groups expected their requests for permits to be denied, but still filed them in hopes of taking them to the European Court of Human Rights, Slate reported.”

Slate wrote, “This latest sweep appears to have been motivated by an organized effort by a gay rights group to request permits to stage gay pride parades in cities across the country. The group was well aware the permits were going to be denied, but it filed the request with the goal of then going to the European Court of Human Rights.”

On April 18, Nikolai Alekseev posted the following message

“Just filed a lawsuit against “Novaya Gazeta” in the Basmannyy District Court of Moscow for the protection of dignity and reputation in connection with two of their publications on the “prosecution of gay men in Chechnya”. The second step will be an official request to the Russian Investigative Committee to charge “Novaya Gazeta” with libel on the basis of the Russian Criminal Code.”

On the margins take a note how the Slate’s “this latest sweep” turned into “the mass detention” when being quoted by the Huffington Post journo.

Another bizarre detail is that Slate’s article was posted on April 1st at 10:43 PM ET and it refers to the Radio Liberty article that was posted on April 02, 2017 at 08:07 GMT. The difference between these time zones is six hours. It would place the time of the Radio Liberty article publication to be at 2:07 AM on April 2nd. How did the Slate manage to refer to the radio Svoboda article that wasn’t there?

They also tweeted the link to their article that confirms the timing  2:35 AM – 2 Apr 2017.

Leading Russian daily says Chechen authorities arresting, killing homosexuals https://t.co/CI2k14ZU6S pic.twitter.com/GCiUizkWjC

— RFE/RL (@RFERL) April 2, 2017

Slate’s April 1 article also posted a link to another online publication hosted in Singapore called Crimerussia: “The group was well aware the permits were going to be denied, but it filed the request with the goal of then going to the European Court of Human Rights.”

Since the allegations are absolutely outrages and target Russian law enforcement and the Chechen police forces including the Special Rapid Response Team Terek, an elite counter-terror unit, let’s look at those who push this story.

I have already written about the radio Svoboda journo named Sergei Khazov-Cassia. Now, meet Nina Golgowski, a reporter for the Huffington Post, covering online news trends, crime and weird news in New York City.

She is the author of “Gay Men Are Being Rounded Up And Killed In Chechnya: Report”

Nina Golgowski started her career in 2009 as a logging media/press intern for Sen. John McCain and congressional GOP members. She claims some experience in handling Russia related stories. In 2008 she worked as an intern for Anderson Cooper 360 CNN, and interviewed Dr. David Gergen, CNN’s Senior Political Analyst, on the Georgia-Russia conflict. She also worked for Daily News America, a British content farm of click-baits.

She uses as a reference the Slate magazine from April 1 article titled “Authorities Reportedly Detaining and Killing Gay Men in Chechnya” by Daniel Politi

Slate magazine illustrates its post with an image taken in Moscow on May 30, 2015 Dmitry Serebryakov for AFP/Getty Images captioned, “Russian riot police detain an LGBTQ rights activist during an unauthorized gay rights rally in central Moscow on May 30, 2015.”

The article commences with a journalistic version of a “Once Upon A Time,” in this case it’s an expression “It has been a rumor…” and claims that “now a leading Russian opposition newspaper has actually confirmed the news and written about it, declaring that authorities in Chechnya are rounding up and killing gay men.”

There is, however, some bad news for Slate magazine, because just writing about rumors doesn’t make them true. As I demonstrated above, Novaya Gazeta, known to Slate readers as “a leading Russian opposition newspaper,” wrote about the detention and killing of gay men as a rumor, its publication has been since refuted by human rights activists in press and by filling a defamation lawsuit.  This information has also been refuted by the Kremlin spokesperson Peskov, by the government of Chechnya, by the local law enforcements, and by the Investigative Committee of Russia.

As a proof that the rumors were confirmed, Slate magazine also uses the following statement, “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.”

On May 13, a Minister of the Internal Affairs of Chechnya, Ruslam Alhanov, made a statement saying that his department conducted a thorough internal investigation and found no evidence of mass disappearance of men in Chechnya. He also said that after the materials of this internal instigation are checked by the Investigative Committee of Russia, he intends to file a lawsuit against the Novaya Gazetta.

An official statement of the Ministry of Domestic Affairs of Chechen republic

Human Rights Activists aim to discredit the Chechen Republic.

May 13, 14:17

Our departments of law enforcement and police departments of the Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic have not received any complaints about possible harassment and alleged mass murders of homosexual persons on the territory of the Republic. This statement was made today by the Head of the interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic Ruslan Alkhanov.

According to the minister, no one contacted the ministry with such complaints. Even more, no one contacted the anonymous “hotlines” that are established by the Ministry of Interior of the Chechen Republic and Operative Investigative Unite of Own Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about this issue.

“Sensational statements about an alleged detention of more than 160 homosexual men, 50 of whom were allegedly killed, are unfounded and simply made up.”

In the interim, the Ministry of Internal Affairs checks every fact, announced in the media on the subject. This hype is overblown by individual human rights activists in Chechnya; it is provocative and aims to discredit the Chechen Republic in public eyes.

After the April 1 publication made by the “Novaya Gazeta” in the article titled  “Honor Killing,” I assigned an interim investigation, which was conducted by employees of the Operative Investigative Unit of the Own Safety of the Ministry of internal Affairs of the Chechen republic.

According to its results, media distributed information was found having no objective evidence. The results of interim investigation were forwarded to the Investigative Directory (Следственное управлени) of Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation “Следственного Комитета РФ) for the Chechen Republic for adoption of the procedural decision in accordance with articles 144 and 145 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation”, – said Ruslan Alkhanov.

He also stressed that after the adoption of the procedural decision is made, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic intends to file a lawsuit against the “NG” and its reporters in the court of law.”

This statement was released by the press service of the interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic on their official website

On May 17, Tatyana Moskalkova, a lawyer, teacher, and politician currently serving as Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights, made a statement that after a month since her initial injury, the Novaya Gazeta finally handed her a list of people believed to be homosexuals and who were  believed to be persecuted in Chechnya for their sexual preferences. She said that she handed the list to Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee and one of the country’s most senior figures in the federal security. She also said that she is ready to meet anyone who is seeking justice, as alleged by the NG. She said she would do everything possible to help them. “No one should suffer from violence,” she said.

 So far, no one has contacted her.