Chechnya has reportedly been detaining, beating, and even murdering gay and bisexual men, while leader Ramzan Kadyrov has denied it – as well as the existence of gay people in the region. He even said if there were such people, they should be sent to Canada in order to “purify our blood.”
It turns out Kadyrov’s idea of traditional relationships include forcing divorced couples to remarry – even forcing them into polygamy if the man has remarried. In some countries, men are permitted to have more than one wife at the same time – up to a total of four – under Islamic law.
Kadyrov ordered the creation of a special commission “of government officials and spiritual leaders to reunite the families and resolve the problem of single mothers,” in July, reports The Moscow Times.
He also recently explained to the BBC his idea of charity: If a woman’s husband leaves her and her children destitute, she is not entitled to assistance from anyone but the deadbeat dad.
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“Most [divorced] mothers want to take away their children from their fathers,” Kadyrov said. “They then rent an apartment in the city and start asking for charity. One of them told me she needs a home. I asked her: where is your husband? She said: he left me.
“I told her: if you didn’t have a husband, I would help you. But you have a husband, the father of your children.”
“We’ve got to wake people up, talk to them, and explain,” Kadyrov also said. “We’ve got to return the women who left their husbands, and reconcile them. This is a priority.”
He added that children of single parents are more susceptible to extremism, especially if they stay with their mother, citing no proof.
Chechen Information Minister Dzhambulat Umarov said around 1,000 families have been “reunited” since the order came down from on high, with another 4,000 due for the same fate. He called the forced reunification “the most beautiful and romantic melodrama.”
“In a large part of the world such problems are considered insoluble,” He said. “But in Chechnya there are few problems that can’t be solved.”
They honestly think they are solving problems, instead of making them worse. It would perhaps be humorous, if it wasn’t so tragic.
