The latest “Magnitsky List” – individuals sanctioned by the United States government for human rights violations in Russia – contains welcome news for those seeking justice for the tragic roundups, killings, and disappearances of LGBT men and women in Chechnya. Released by the Treasury Department on December 20, the list includes two men widely viewed as responsible for those heinous acts: Ramzan Kadyrov and Ayub Kataev.
Kadyrov is a brutal, Kremlin-backed dictator in the Russian Republic of Chechnya, who runs the region with an iron fist and certainly blessed the recent wave of LGBT persecution there. Kataev runs the prisons in Chechnya, where gay men have been mercilessly tortured. The Treasury Department designated Kadyrov “for being responsible for extrajudicial killing and torture,” and noted in more specific terms that “Kataev is reported to have been involved in abuses against gay men in Chechnya during the first half of 2017.”
Inclusion of these two criminals on the list signals some measure of support by the Trump Administration for fair policies toward, and fair treatment of, LGBT people worldwide. It underscores, too, the value of the Magnitsky Act* as a tool in sanctioning those credibly deemed “….responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights…..” Failing to hold Kadyrov and Kataev accountable under the Act’s provisions would have raised further questions about the value this Administration attaches to the Act and to human rights more broadly. Read more via the Council for Global Equality