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Merkel presses Putin on gay rights Chechnya gay rights: Merkel urges Putin to intervene
(35 minutes later)
German Chancellor Merkel says Vladimir Putin should protect gay people, amid reports of persecution in Chechnya. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to help protect gay rights in Chechnya.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version. Activists say police in the republic have arrested and tortured dozens of people in an anti-gay crackdown.
If you want to receive Breaking News alerts via email, or on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App then details on how to do so are available on this help page. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts. Mrs Merkel raised the issue during her first visit to Russia since 2015, which saw her hold talks with Mr Putin at his summer residence in Sochi.
Relations between the two nations have been strained over Syria and Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The civil wars in Syria and Ukraine were discussed by the two leaders.
Mr Putin is due to meet Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan later on Wednesday.
Chechen police 'torturing gay men'
'They want to exterminate us', says Chechen gay man
Russia paper warned over Chechnya reports
Homophobia is widespread in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region run by Ramzan Kadyrov, an authoritarian leader with a notorious private militia who is fiercely loyal to President Putin.
Last month, Natalia Poplevskaya of the Russian LGBT Network said there was "an organised campaign to detain gay men" in Chechnya.
Victims of the crackdown - who were either gay or just perceived to be gay - were being held at a detention centre near Argun, 20km (13 miles) from the city of Grozny, she said.
"Torture is going on with electric shocks, beatings with cables," she told the BBC, adding that three deaths had been reported. "All the people arrested are homosexual men or perceived as being gay."
A Chechen government spokesman, Alvi Karimov, denied the allegations.
"You can't detain and repress people who simply don't exist in the republic," he said.