• SpaceDogs
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      9 months ago

      I found it! It was Chechnya! Which is a part of Russia? It’s a republic of Russia but I don’t know what that means entirely. Anyway, they had anti-gay purges and I remember hearing about it in high school (not in class, just on the news). It’s a Wikipedia link so viewer discretion is advised, but it works for summary of what I was talking about.

        • SpaceDogs
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          9 months ago

          I have a healthy dose of skepticism, I promise! I shared this to show what narratives were making the rounds. With how it’s talked about it reminded me of the “Uyghur concentration camps” in China, if that makes sense. I have a very hard time articulating myself.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind
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          9 months ago

          Remember that the Chechens were portrayed by west as the good guys when they opposed Russia, and back then they were led by absolute scumbags compared to which Kadyrov is an angel, and even things like terrorist act in Beslan or Dubrovka theatre (imagine what would USA do if something like that happened there!) didn’t shaken that.

          In Poland mainstream media emanated visible schadenfreude and more open fash were saying the terrorist are cool guys, or would be if only they werent “ciapaci” (polish slur for brown people, usually used for muslims).

        • SpaceDogs
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          9 months ago

          Honestly, when this news broke out I had no idea that Chechnya was majority Muslim. All I knew (heard) was that this specific region in Russia is torturing gay people. I really hope me sharing this event didn’t come off as Islamophobic.

      • M68040 [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        From what I understand, Chechnya’s a region that up until relatively recently had pretty hostile relations with the Russian Federation at large, including two wars. It seems like Yeltsin’s failure to resolve the more recent war was a big part of how he fell out of popularity and Putin went back into office? I don’t really know the details, but it seems he’s managed to smooth things out with them seeing as Kadyrov and other local politicians have been pretty enthusiastic about the war in Ukraine.

        Geographically it’s situated in the far southwest of Russia, sharing a border with Georgia.