20-year-old Salekh Magamadov and 17-year-old Ismail Isayev have been handed over to the Chechen authorities and detained. The pair had previously fled persecution and torture in Chechnya and taught refuge in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.
Last June, both Magamadov and Isayev were forced to leave Chechnya after being tortured by Chechen special police for running an opposition Telegram messaging channel.
The police made the men publicly apologise in a recorded video. The men were abducted last Thursday, according to the Russian LGBT Network, The Guardian reports that the men were being detained for “aiding terrorism”.