The head of the Memorial human rights group in Chechnya was arrested on Tuesday for unlawful drug possession — a charge his supporters say is fabricated. Memorial is one of Russia’s oldest human rights organizations and has reported on forced abductions, torture and other human rights abuses by local authorities in the North Caucasus republic.

Six months after reports emerged that gay men were being detained illegally and tortured in the Russian republic of Chechnya, a young man has spoken publicly for the first time about his ordeal. Maxim Lapunov has described being held for 12 days in a blood-soaked cell, beaten with sticks, threatened and humiliated by police.

I remember when I first saw one of Frank Herfort’s photographs and thought it looked like a movie still from some iconic film that I’d somehow never seen...