Vice, who spoke with the victim via e-mail, reports that Lorsanova was locked up in the clinic for a month due to her sexual orientation and rejection of the Islamic faith. She also says she was imprisoned in another Chechen institution for four months at the hands of her parents. Here she claims to have been tortured by an unnamed man (an acquaintance of her father according to her) who tried to “expel evil spirits” while she was detained.

She said in an e-mail to Vice: “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. 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 claims that her father injected her with an antipsychotic medication on at least six occasions in late 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. After the injection of [the antipsychotic medication] aminazin, I was supposed to sleep that way. He even didn’t unleash my legs and hands,”

Since then, Lorsanova has fled Chechnya thanks to the help provided by the Russian LGBT Network and is currently residing in another country. According to Vice, despite Lorsanova’s request for investigating the clinic, the Federal Investigative Committee of Russia has yet to respond.  

Chechnya is an autonomous region of the Russian Federation and has become known for the highly oppressive circumstances for LGBT people. News stories regularly surface regarding torture of sexual minorities. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russia is refusing to cooperate in investigating the atrocities.