A gay man is speaking out after suffering torture in a Chechnya concentration camp. Maxim Lapunov was one of the first victims of the ‘gay purge‘ in March 2017. Unknown thugs grabbed and dragged him into a car one night. He was then allegedly held for 12 days in a blood-soaked cell. He says he suffered terrible threats, humiliation and torture. Laponov also said he could hear, in his cell, the cries and screams of other gay men in the concentration camp. Police interrogated and tortured him to name other gay men, he says. ‘They burst in every 10 or 15 minutes shouting that I was gay and they would kill me,’ he also said. ‘Then they beat me with a stick for a long time: in the legs, ribs, buttocks, and back. When I started to fall, they pulled me up and carried on.