Chechen woman forced into Islamic 'exorcism' to oust her bisexuality
The 22-year-old has filed a complaint after she was detained for four months in a psychiatric unit.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALCampaigners place flowers on a multicoloured flag as they protest for LGBT rights in Chechnya outside the Russian embassy in London, Britain June 2, 2017(photo credit: REUTERS/NEIL HALL)
Aminat Lorsanova, a 22-year-old bisexual Chechen woman, has filed a complaint in Russia against a clinic and her parents for her detention in a psychiatric facility in Grozny, where she was allegedly beaten and tortured over her sexuality and rejection of Islam.Vice News first reported on Tuesday about Lorsanova’s case. She fled Chechnya and is currently living outside of Russia. According to Vice, she was forcefully held for 25 days in August 2018.She told Vice that an unnamed man sought to “expel evil spirits” while she was detained for four months at the Republican Psycho-Neurological Dispensary in Chechnya's capital Grozny.“He was beating me with a stick in the solar plexus, pressing this area and below with his fingers. He put down my skirt to the hips and was pressing there as well,” Lorsanova wrote by email to Vice News. “I was screaming out of pain, and he was yelling prayers. My mother and father observed the process but did not do anything even though I asked for help and asked them to stop that.”Lorsanova also told Vice that on “at least six occasions at the end of 2018, her father injected her against her will.” she said that “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. After the injection of [the antipsychotic medication] aminazin, I was supposed to sleep that way. He didn’t even unleash my legs and hands.”The Daily Mail and USA Today have described the violently homophobic procedure imposed on gay and bisexual people as Islamic 'exorcisms' to rid gays, lesbians and bisexual people of so-called “evil spirits.” USA Today reported in November on a similar case in Indonesia.Chechnya has garnered international criticism for its campaign against gay men. Chechnya’s ruler Ramzan Kadyrov said in 2017 that there are no LGBT people in the Caucasus country.Iran's then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared during a talk in New York City in 2007 that there are no gays in the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose regime imposes the death penalty on gays and lesbians. The Chechen regime incarcerated and tortured over 100 gay men in 2017. Vice noted that deaths occurred during the anti-gay crackdown.
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