Dear friends,
Activists fighting this brutal crackdown need more of
our help, and fast.
The
underground rescue
network they’ve thrown together is no match for the roving
government thugs who round up "suspected homosexuals" and
drag them to black sites to be tortured -- and in some cases
killed unless they reveal the names of their friends and
lovers.
This is how we save lives: funding for safe
houses, transportation, and legal representation, plus media
coverage and campaigns against horrific laws.
Every day,
more people face being rounded up -- let's show them the
world won’t stand by while they are wiped out:
Over
1 million of us have already called on Russia's leaders to
intervene, and
we’ve helped get heads of state and the
global media to take our message directly to President
Putin. But investigators just found four more secret prisons.
For the moment, gay men’s only hope is fellow citizens
prepared to put their own lives at risk to spirit them to
safety.
We can help take this incredible work to the
next level, fast. Together we could:
- fund safe houses where gay people can hide from
authorities
- provide cars and lawyers to help people flee the
country
- send investigative journalists to expose anti-gay
abuse and violence
- back local activists wherever these attacks take
place to win the basic right to love whoever they choose,
and ramp up international pressure on their
government.
and more…
We know what we do
works. When this same kind of attack was launched in
Uganda, Avaaz successfully established secure housing,
security training and support for a rescue network, and
advocated to water down a brutal gay death penalty law --
saving countless lives.
Assaults on gay communities
are happening everywhere, and so is the resistance. From a
network of support and counselling in the Middle East to a
protection force for LGBT people in South Africa -- we can
make Chechnya the beginning of a global response to gay hate
with enough funds from all of us. Let’s show Chechnya and gay
communities everywhere that the world won’t let them be
silently wiped out:
The
struggle to make gay rights human rights everywhere is a long
one, but it’s a struggle that is essential to our shared
humanity -- almost 10% of the human population lives and loves
in fear! This is our chance to chip away at that fear and
replace it with the freedom to love openly.
With
determination and gratitude for this amazing
community,
Emma, Danny, Sarah, Spyro, Risalat and the whole
Avaaz team
P.S. When Uganda first tried to pass a law
giving the death penalty for being gay, it seemed hopeless.
With a spark from our movement, the resistance inside
Uganda survived government attack, beat back the law, took
the American religious leader who promoted the law to court
and became an international fighting force for LGBT rights.
This is the kind of story we can tell again and again
together!
Join
in here.Note: The image featured in this
campaign is from elsewhere in Russia, where the Russian LGBT
Network is fighting hard for gay rights.More
information:
Chechnya wants to eliminate gay community
by end of May, reports suggest (Independent)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chechnya-ramzan-kadyrov-gay-men-eliminate-chechen-leader-detain-torture-end-may-2017-camps-russia-a7700711.html
Gay Men Are Being Rounded Up And Killed In Chechnya:
Report (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chechen-gays-arrested-killed-reports-say_us_58e12a65e4b0b3918c843db6
Gay men in Chechnya are being tortured and killed.
More will suffer if we don’t act (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/13/gay-men-targeted-chechnya-russia
The international community must respond to attacks on
gay men in Chechnya (The Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-international-community-must-respond-to-attacks-on-gay-men-in-chechnya/article34718214/
Chechens tell of prison beatings and electric shocks
in anti-gay purge: ‘They called us animals’ (The
Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/13/they-called-us-animals-chechens-prison-beatings-electric-shocks-anti-gay-purge
