Review of Welcome to Chechnya

I've read a bit about Chechnya and the brutality of its regime and recall the stories of its brutal crackdown against LGBT people {stories which rarely make the news now) so I was expecting this doco to be a hard slog. The makers were deft at taking us on the underground railway of the network which saves gay and lesbian people by sneaking them out of Chechnya. We see the best qualities of humanity in the folk who risk so much to help others from being persecuted for being who they are. I was worried there'd be too many descriptions of torture and bashings etc. but they were just enough to give a sense of the horrors being committed. It was disheartening to hear how the people doing good are finding it harder to get asylum for the threatened. It's ad if the world is turning a blind eye. The film presents a forceful argument that persecution of a group in society is an ever present threat when leaders have impunity to express their dictatorial side: looking at you Putin and Trump.