DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Last spring, MORNING EDITION traveled to Russia, and one of the stories we reported on there was about gay men from the Russian republic of Chechnya. They were being hunted down and tortured by authorities. Some had made their way to an LGBT community center in Moscow, and there, one of them - we changed his name to Arnie to protect his identity - told his story through an interpreter about being delivered to his family's home unconscious in a burlap bag or parcel.
ARNIE: (Speaking Russian).
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: Some guys came to his house and told the relatives, this is your son, he is homosexual. And everyone was shocked. And Arnie's uncle took him out of the parcel, he held his neck and was going to kill him.
GREENE: As you can imagine, many of these men were uncertain about their future. Some have now found refuge in the Netherlands. That's the first country in the world to recognize same-sex marriage, but it sounds like now their future is uncertain once again. Some of them are facing deportation, as Joanna Kakissis reports.
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JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Joanna. Nice to meet you.
I meet Abdul Kadr outside Amsterdam's train station. It's not his real name. He chose it for himself. And we're also distorting his voice for his safety. Abdul Kadr is serious and silver-haired, a married father of four from Grozny, Chechnya. Being married to a woman was how he hid his love affair with a man, also married and also a father. In Chechnya, where gay men are reportedly sent to torture camps, it was a way to survive.
ABDUL KADR: (Through interpreter) When I was with straight people, I totally condemned other gay men. You really have no other choice in Chechnya.
KAKISSIS: But Chechen police started following Abdul Kadr and outed him to his wife and relatives.
KADR: (Through interpreter) My wife found out the day. It was a life or death matter. On the night, the relatives came to kill me. She chose to hide me. She saved my life.
KAKISSIS: He fled to Moscow, where LGBT activists helped him reach the Netherlands last year. It's one of a handful of European countries opening their doors to gay Chechens. Abdul Kadr has befriended another Chechen here, Artur, also a name he chose for himself. Artur is a mop-haired 25-year-old with bright blue eyes. He says the police tortured his friends into outing him.
ARTUR: (Through interpreter) The police electrocuted my friends, beat them, denied them food and water. They slept on concrete while the drug dealers and terrorists slept in beds.
KAKISSIS: Artur and Abdul Kadr worried that Chechnya's secret police may even find them in Europe. But what's been hardest for them, it turns out, is just talking about their sexuality. Abdul Kadr found himself giving monosyllabic answers during a crucial immigration interview.
KADR: (Through interpreter) I couldn't overcome my fear and give them details even if it meant my life was hanging by a thread. I was terrified.
KAKISSIS: Listening with a grimace on his face is Sandro Kortekaas, who runs a volunteer network that helps LGBT refugees in the Netherlands.
SANDRO KORTEKAAS: For all refugees who come from countries where you can't be gay, you couldn't speak to someone about this. So when you have the Dutch immigration service, who ask you to tell your whole story, and if there is something which is not good, it means that they can say, sorry, we don't think you are gay - that's horrible.
KAKISSIS: The Dutch immigration service does not register the sexual orientation of those who apply for asylum so there's no way to know how many have been rejected.
ANNICK OERLEMANS: It's just a really individual assessment in every individual case.
KAKISSIS: Annick Oerlemans is an immigration officer.
OERLEMANS: We have interviews with LGBT asylum-seekers basically every day, I think. And we're actually trained to make people feel as comfortable as we possibly can in order to get them to speak about those things.
KAKISSIS: Elias Karam tries to help asylum-seekers open up even before that immigration interview. He's a refugee himself and works at Secret Garden, an Amsterdam nonprofit that helps LGBT refugees.
ELIAS KARAM: Many of these refugees, in their home country they are not used to talk about sexuality in general. So when it come about homosexuality, about their homosexuality, they don't know how to talk.
KAKISSIS: Karam encourages refugees who come to Secret Garden's weekly dinner meetings to talk to each other. At one recent meeting, held largely in Arabic and in English, a transgender woman from Lebanon admits she had a panic attack walking out in makeup and heels for the first time. Others talk about beatings, of rejection, isolation.
Back at the train station, Abdul Kadr and Artur, the two Chechens, are working out their own experiences. Artur says he often thinks about something that seems suicidal, returning to Chechnya. He breaks down as he explains why.
ARTUR: (Through interpreter) I was never looking for freedom to be openly gay. I didn't want my family to have any problems because of me, and now they have huge problems. My mom is literally losing her mind because the police come to our house every day.
KAKISSIS: Artur recently received asylum. Abdul Kadr is still waiting to find out. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis in Amsterdam.