A Monitoring Guide 105 In countries where same-sex relations and/or trans identities are criminalized and LGBT persons are arrested on this account, the risk of harassment and abuse in custody is very high. Reports include accounts of police officers entering cells and forcing LGBT people to perform humiliating acts, and of beatings either by police officers or other detainees, at the request of the police. There is also evidence of food and water deprivation, and of allowing the media to photograph LGBT persons in custody against their will. Other reports detail instances of vigilante groups storming police stations and beating LGBT detainees in the presence of police officers. ! Unlawful detention, torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings in unofficial places of detention Starting at the end of February 2017, security forces in Chechnya, a federal subject of the Russian Federation, began abducting and unlawfully holding men perceived to be gay or bisexual in secret detention. These large-scale arrests have been identified as “cleansing” operations designed to eliminate homosexuality from the region. While violence on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity had occasionally been reported in the region in the past, the scale of the repression under way since 2017 is unprecedented. The apparent trigger was a request made by a Moscow-based gay rights group to hold marches in four cities in the North Caucasus region. Many of the victims were targeted after being identified by cell phones or entrapped via online dating apps. Various sources report that they were held in an unofficial detention center in very poor material conditions. They have been subject to physical and verbal abuse, as well Chapter IV nal legislation and internationals standards (for pre-charge detention). Detainees can be held for weeks, months, or even years in police facilities, including while serving their sentences. If this is the case, nevertheless, material conditions should be equivalent to the minimum standards required for pre-trial detention. Persons requiring medical treatment, and in particular trans people, should not be prevented from accessing such treatment because of prolonged detention in police custody. There are reports of trans women being held for months in poor conditions in police stations, sometimes together with male detainees, and without the possibility of receiving visitors, especially if they are also trans individuals.