The Tashkent police department said they have detained two men in connection with the brutal murder of a young gay man in the country where homosexuality is officially outlawed.
The two suspects were charged with the murder of 25-year-old Shokir Shavkatov, whose body was found on Saturday.
Shokir Shavkatov was found with two stab wounds in his body and his throat cut so deeply that he was almost decapitated.
Shavkatov had made his coming-out on Instagram.
Shavkatov’s friend said that Shavkatov was in a nightclub on September 12. He left the club late at night with two men, Aziz said, and went to an apartment in Tashkent where he most likely was attacked and eventually killed.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are the only former Soviet republics where gay relations have not been decriminalized since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In Russia, as in most former Soviet republics, homosexuality was decriminalized in the 1990s, though it remains illegal to promote homosexuality among minors.
