Chechnya opens terror inquiry into gay men forcibly returned from Moscow

Aide to republic's leader Ramzan Kadyrov claims men confessed to helping illegal armed group

Chechnya has opened a terrorism investigation into two gay men who fled the region last year but were arrested near Moscow last week and forcibly returned.

The rights group that helped the men escape Chechnya, an autonomous Russian republic where the torture, detentions and killings of gay men have been reported since 2017, said they weren't certain why exactly the men were being persecuted but that one of them had earlier been interrogated for sharing LGBTQ emojis in an online group.