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Russia Wants Answers Over Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Blocked Instagram

Anti-LGBT hardliner Ramzan Kadyrov claims Facebook also booted him without explanation.

A Russian internet watchdog is demanding answers after Chechnya’s authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov was apparently denied access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts. Kadyrov, who has been accused by numerous human-rights groups of assembling “concentration camps” of Russian LGBT people (and executing many of them), is accusing the U.S. government of pressuring the social-media giants to disable the accounts, which he claims were blocked over the weekend without any explanation. Watchdog Roskomnadzor said it intended to make an official request to the companies for more information. Kadyrov, who has more than 3 million followers on his Russian-language Instagram account, was hit last week with travel and financial sanctions from the U.S. over alleged human-rights abuses as part of Magnitsky Act rules. Kadyrov is steadfastly loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has used his accounts to threaten critics of the Kremlin.