Formal Complaint Made Over Gay Crackdown in Chechnya

A Russian man is accusing authorities in Chechnya of jailing and beating him as part of a broad crackdown on gay people.

Maxim Lapunov said during a news conference on Monday that unidentified people detained him on a street in the Russian region and drove him to a detention facility.

Lapunov says guards beat him with sticks for more than a week. He says other people in the same facility were tortured and beaten for being gay.

Lapunov is the first person to file a complaint with Russian authorities over systemic anti-LGBT attacks that human rights defenders and media outlets say have taken place under Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov.

Human rights group say more than 100 gay men have been arrested in Chechnya this year and some of them were killed.