Bisexual woman went to authorities after her family forced her into ‘violent’ conversion therapy. They’re refusing to investigate
The 22-year-old was beaten and tortured for months in a conversion therapy institution (Envato Elements)
A mother and father who had their bisexual daughter beaten and tortured at two conversion therapy clinics will not face any criminal charges, it has been reported.
The conservative Muslim parents detained Aminat Lorsanova, 22, at an institution in Grozny, Chechnya. She says they watched on while an unnamed acquaintance of her father tried to “expel the djinn” by beating her with a stick as he read from the Quran.
Lorsanova believes she was held there for at least four months, and was also detained at a second psychiatric clinic for 25 days. In addition to this she claims her father forcibly sedated her by injecting her with an antipsychotic medication on at least six occasions in 2018.
“He put handcuffs and tied my legs with adhesive tape. My mouth was also taped. He told me that he was going to treat me like an animal, like a sheep,” she said in an interview with Vice.
“After the injection of aminazin, I was supposed to sleep that way. He even didn’t unleash my legs and hands.”
After the conversion therapy ordeal Lorsanova fled the country with help from Russian LGBT Network, an advocacy group that has been instrumental in evacuating LGBT+ people from the region.
In January this year she demanded authorities initiate criminal proceedings against her parents. She reported the beatings to the Investigative Committee of Russia in Moscow which instructed Chechnya’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) to investigate.
But the MIA has refused to open a criminal case, and Lorsanova told OC Media she suspects the whole investigation has been mishandled.
According to Veronika Lapina, a member of the Russian LGBT Network who is representing Lorsanova, the investigators never even spoke Lorsanova or with her legal team.
She also pointed out that the document in which the case was denied was dated to February, despite the fact that the case was only brought to the MIA in March, a full month later.
The Chechen region is notorious for its persecution of LGBT+ people, many of whom became victims of a horrifying ‘gay purge‘. All reports of this have been fervently denied by Chechnya’s homophobic leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who insists LGBT+ people don’t even exist in the region.
Nevertheless, the LGBT Network is now seeking a new investigation to ensure Lorsanova gets the justice she deserves.
