Igor Kochetkov is the Programs Director of the Russian LGBT Network, a human rights organisation that works on LGBT issues. In April 2017, the Russian LGBT Network shone a light on a massive wave of detentions and torture of individuals who were understood to be part of the Chechen LGBT community. The Network subsequently provided means for protective relocation to more than 114 people. Since the end of December 2018, information about at least 14 detentions of individuals from the LGBT community was received by the Russian LGBT Network via its hotline.
HRDs are often subjected to acts of harassment, surveillance, physical attacks, threat, raids and searches on their offices and homes, slander and smear campaigns, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment, as well as violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. There have also been cases where HRDs have been murdered as a result of their work.
