A young woman from Russia’s conservative republic of Chechnya is seeking criminal charges against her parents, one of their acquaintances and a psychiatric clinic for allegedly torturing her based on her sexual orientation, a Russian LGBT support group said Tuesday.
The latest incident comes after widespread reports of anti-gay abuse, including torture and killings, in the majority-Muslim region in recent years. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has denied the existence of gay people in Chechnya, a claim that Russia has also submitted to the UN.
Aminat Lorsanova, 22, who fled Russia with the LGBT Network support group’s help last year, alleges that she was illegally held at two Chechen clinics for a total of five months in 2018. While in detention, Lorsanova claims her parents’ acquaintance beat her on several occasions with a stick while reading the Quran in a practice he called an Islamic “exorcism.”
“My mother and father observed the process but did not do anything even though I asked for help,” Lorsanova said in a statement carried by the LGBT Network.
Her father also attempted to convert her to heterosexuality on six occasions in late 2018, restraining her with handcuffs and adhesive tape to inject an antipsychotic drug, Lorsanova said.
“He told me that he was going to treat me like an animal, like a sheep,” the young woman said.
Russia’s Investigative Committee did not say whether it plans to open a criminal case into Lorsanova’s allegations.
LGBT Network’s Veronika Lapina said that the practice of “exorcising” LGBT people is prevalent both in Chechnya and among the Chechen diaspora. More than 30 young women the group worked with have “experienced this often sexualized form of inhuman treatment because of their sexual orientation,” she added.
Russia banned “propaganda of homosexuality toward minors” in 2013. Same-sex sexual activity is not a crime in Russia, but rights advocates say that law has created fertile ground for homophobic attacks.
(c) The Moscow Times
“He told me that he was going to treat me like an animal, like a sheep,”
How ironic, a caveman talking about sheep, beating his daughter with a stick, while reading from the most evil book in the world.
Torturing lesbians is the most disgusting crime on earth. If men would treat their women with love and respect, less women would flee into the arms of other women. Independent from that any woman has the right to fall for whoever she wants.
We are talking about a religion were a camel is higher up the ladder than a woman. A muslim woman is there for one thing, to breed terrorists.
And clean the toilet, in case one is installed…
Or dig the hole in the ground.
I can’t say i disagree with opinions about that book and the religion it represent, it’s just the irony that these opinions are considered fascism in our society of today.
In my country you would most likely face the court for this.
Where you from? Germany?
Sweden.
Just as bad.
Ah. Ok. So you think siding with Russia, where more than 20 million muslims live, and Putin has not wiped them – but made a muslim from Chechnya part of his new government, will save you?.
Being nice to terrorists will not save you, it will just ensure you will be killed last.
No, i don’t think Putin is a salvation to my country, i am aware there are naive people who really wan’t to belive in this though, and i know that the regime in Moscow would most likely arrest me aswell.
And it’s to late for Sweden, much to late.