Tag Archives: Russia

Clip recap: Gay men are being rounded up and killed in Chechnya, and US officials seem to be turning a blind eye. A European court just ruled against the mandatory sterilization of trans citizens but the practice will continue indefinitely. And same-sex couples just won new protections for adoption, and for housing in a case that could completely change how …

The Guardian reports: Few rules have been bent, manipulated and outright broken quite like the Eurovision song contest’s ban on “lyrics, speeches [or] gestures of a political or similar nature”. Over the six decades of the competition there have been peace, war and the fall of the Berlin Wall – but this year politics has gripped Eurovision in a more …

The New York Times reports: United Nations experts demanded on Thursday that Chechnya halt the abduction, detention, beating and killing of gay and bisexual men, after weeks of reports about violent repression there. “These are acts of persecution and violence on an unprecedented scale in the region and constitute serious violations of the obligations of the Russian Federation under international …

Slate reports: Buried in the last paragraph of a Guardian story about British intelligence alerting the U.S. to contact between Trump advisers and Russian officials is this sort-of bombshell: One source suggested the official [American] investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign …

Politico reports: A handful of House Democrats are calling on federal authorities to suspend Jared Kushner’s security clearance amid a wide-ranging probe into Trump associates’ contacts with Russian officials. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser failed to disclose numerous foreign contacts when he applied for top secret clearance, including at least two meetings with high-profile Russians during Trump’s transition to …

NBC News reports: Since news broke nearly two weeks ago of authorities in Chechnya arresting men suspected of being gay and torturing them in a secretive detention center, a Russian emergency hotline said it has received increasing pleas for help from people who have been targeted. “We have received about 30 unique messages since April 2,” said Natalia Poplevskaia, the …

Via press release: The Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus denounced reports of hundreds gay men being arrested, detained, and tortured in Chechnya, an autonomous, predominantly Muslim subject of Russia. Additional reports indicate that several of the detained individuals have been murdered in custody. On April 10th 2017, Representatives Cicilline and Lowenthal led a bipartisan letter of 50 Members of Congress urging …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman is registering as a foreign agent. Paul Manafort’s spokesman says he was in talks with the government about registering before the 2016 election and is now “taking appropriate steps” in response to “formal guidance” from the government. The spokesman says Manafort’s lobbying work was not conducted on behalf of the …

USA Today reports: President Trump and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg hold a joint presser at 4pm ET Wednesday. The meetings at the White House come as tensions with Russia have reached a high point over a U.S. air strike against Syria, a Russian ally, last week. That strike came in response to a Syrian chemical weapons attack against civilians two …

The Week reports: Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have required Syria to cooperate with investigators probing the chemical attack in Idlib province last week, which killed dozens of Syrian civilians. The resolution would have condemned the use of chemical weapons, a violation of the Geneva Convention, and required a speedy investigation of the matter. Because Russia …

The New York Times reports: After Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson waited for much of the day, wondering whether he would get to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin, the two men sat down at the Kremlin late Wednesday afternoon in the first face-to-face meeting between the Russian leader and a top official in the Trump administration. Relations between …

The Associated Press reports: Last August, a handwritten ledger surfaced in Ukraine with dollar amounts and dates next to the name of Paul Manafort, who was then Donald Trump’s campaign chairman. Ukrainian investigators called it evidence of off-the-books payments from a pro-Russian political party — and part of a larger pattern of corruption under the country’s former president. Manafort, who …

The Washington Post reports: The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said. The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a …

AOL News reports: White House press secretary Sean Spicer is set to address the press corps on Tuesday in a foreign policy-focused week for the Trump administration. From Tillerson’s trip to Moscow to North Korea’s threat aimed at America in response to warships in the Korean Peninsula, this week is shaping up to be a pivotal one for President Trump, …

Via press release: Today, GLAAD – the world’s LGBTQ media advocacy organization, called on Nikki Haley, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, to condemn the attacks on LGBTQ men by the Chechen government and investigate reports of possible imprisonment of LGBTQ people in concentration camps because of their perceived sexual orientation. GLAAD’s call to action follows reports which surfaced …

The Telegraph reports: Donald Trump’s decision to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria proved he is not in league with Russia and will not be “pushed around” by Vladimir Putin, the US President’s son has told The Daily Telegraph. Eric Trump said his father was not intimidated by President Putin’s talk of war, and there would be “no-one harder” …

Gizmodo reports: LiveJournal, a blog community that’s hosted a lot of science fiction authors and fans (including George RR Martin), has officially banned “political solicitation”— which can mean anything that criticizes the Russian government, as well as pro-LGBTQ discussions. There are also concerns users can be subject to Russian spying. The service grew in popularity as a social network in …

Crime Russia reports: The LGBT people who fled from repressions in Chechnya said there are two secret prisons for illegal detentions of offenders, as well as drug addicts and LGBT people who the Chechen government see as an issue, according to the Svoboda ratio station. The raid began in December of 2016, not February of 2017 as earlier reported, according …

CNN reports: The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has told CNN that removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power is a priority, cementing an extraordinary U-turn in the Trump administration’s stance on the embattled leader. Two days after the US launched military strikes on a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack widely blamed on …

Earlier this week Russia’s Ministry of Justice announced that it has banned an image of Vladimir Putin in heavy makeup, although they did not specify which of the countless such memes is the banned one. Some media outlets have characterized the move as banning the depiction of Putin as a “gay clown” – setting up last night’s bit from Stephen …