Nothing ‘Unusual Was Said There’
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson is defending the leader of Chechnya and his call to send all gay people to Canada to “purify” the blood on his citizens. The top Kremlin spox also claimed his words could have been taken out of context. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in an interview with HBO posted last week announced that while there are no LGBT people in his Russian republic, if there were they should be deported.
“As for Kadyrov’s interview, frankly speaking, very often his words are taken out of context,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov (photo) said, according to Russian state news agency TASS. “But they should be viewed only in the context and considered in the context, nothing out of the unusual was said there,” Peskov added, apparently struggling with the American idiom.Â
In his interview with HBO’s “Real Sports,” Kadyrov says gays “are not people” and “are devils” who “are for sale.”Â
Kadyrov also insists there are no gays in Chechnya. But if there are, “take them to Canada,” he says. “Praise be to God. Take them far from us so we don’t have them at home. To purify our blood, if there are any here, take them.”
“Last week,” The Moscow Times adds, Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta “published the names of 27 detainees it believes were murdered by Chechen security forces.” Novaya Gazeta first broke the story of Chechnya’s gay concentration camps, where about 100 abducted men have been detained, tortured, and about one out of every four, murdered.
The HBO “Real Sports” interview airs July 18.
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Image via the Kremlin
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