Authorities in the Russian Federated Republic of Chechnya have reportedly rounded up more than a hundred gay men or suspected gay men, killing at least three of them. 

The New York Times cited the Russian Novaya Gazeta newspaper which quoted government and police sources.  This confirmation came after a week in which rumors ran rampant as men were snatched from the streets, including two television reporters, a prominent Mufti, and children as young as 16 years.  The report had the names of the three men who were confirmed dead but suspected many more extra-judicial killings had taken place.

The denial from the government was callous:  "You cannot arrest or repress people who just don't exist in the republic," said Alvi Karimov, spokesman for Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov.  "If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return," he added.  Indeed, there are reports of some men fleeing the country after being released by authorities or after watching friends get arrested.

In early March, LGBT Rights groups applied for permits to hold pride parades in the northern Caucasus and across Russia.  They expected their requests for permits to be denied but still filed them in hopes of taking them to the European Court of Human Rights.

Chechnya is a Russian Federated Republic, ruled with an iron fist by 40-year old Ramzan Kadyrov.  He's known for hyper-masculine activities like weight lifting, wrestling, MMA, and his love for polygamy.  But building those muscles has stretched Kadyrov's skin to an impossible thinness that makes him ultra-sensitive to the slightest criticism on social media, leading him to order his security forces to crack down on anyone who disagrees with him even to the tiniest degree.  Ordinary Chechens accused of insulting the state and its leaders online are made to apologize live on air to Kadyrov - one famous example had a young man stripped to his underwear and forces to apologize.  Others have been abducted by security forces and beaten.  Paris-based Reporters Without Borders says Kadyrov is "a predator of press freedom", while the NGO Freedom House has listed him among the "worst of the worst".