Canada has joined a chorus of human rights groups and international agencies calling on Russia to investigate reported persecution of members of the LGBTQ2 people in Chechnya.
There are allegations that at least 100 people have been detained in Chechnya and last week the independent Russian newspaper.
Novaya Gazeta reported that at least three gay men had been killed in what the newspaper called “concentration camps.”
In a statement released Saturday, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland called the reports–if confirmed–“reprehensible.”
“Human rights have no borders,” the statement says. “Canada believes human rights are universal and indivisible, and these include the human rights of LGBTQ2 people.”
Freeland’s statement followed a similar call on Friday by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the rights division of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
A spokesperson for Ramzan Kadyrov, president of Chechnya, says there is no such thing as gays in the region and a spokeperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin says the Kremlin has no confirmed information that any violence has taken place.
With files from the Government of Canada, CBC News, Reuters
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