Conversion therapy camps operate in Russia – WP

In Russia, parents pay thugs to kidnap their children and keep them in closed centres to "cure" their queer identities.

Source: The Washington Post, citing people who had been held in these institutions and a Russian lawyer who used to work on cases related to the LGBTQ+ community.

Details: The newspaper spoke to people who had been held in these institutions. According to them, the conditions behind the high concrete walls resemble "small unregulated prisons, designed for alcoholics, drug addicts, or people whose families see them as problems".

Many were deceived or kidnapped and then kept for months. They said they had been beaten, humiliated or forced to read out confessions that they were destructive and selfish because of their "addiction" to their sexuality or gender identity. This involved methods intended to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

In particular, the newspaper spoke to a 23-year-old transgender non-binary person who underwent nine months of conversion treatment at a rehabilitation centre in the Altai Territory of Siberia.

The young person was lured to the centre by their mother, who asked them to support her during a heart operation in the countryside. The mother got out of the car, a burly man pushed her child against the door, locked it and took their phone, watch and backpack.

The victim said that she was beaten, thrown into the river as punishment and forced to perform physical exercises repeatedly "until all I could see is white and yet they forced me to do it over and over again".

They were given neuroleptic drugs intended for people suffering from mental illness.

Those undergoing treatment had to bathe in the river every day before morning prayer, even in winter at sub-zero temperatures. She was given "manly" work, such as chopping wood, "to help myself become a man". Once she was forced to castrate a pig.

Quote from the victim: "I was given a surgical knife and given instructions how to do it.  But I couldn’t finish it. I had a severe panic attack and from then on, I was getting more and more suicidal."

More details: The victim escaped a month after their abduction, but was caught and had several teeth knocked out. She tried to escape twice more and was beaten again. She managed to call the police and was released.

Alexandra, 28, from Moscow, was also forcibly detained in several medical centres for 21 months.

The woman was given such strong sedatives that she felt "like a zombie" and was constantly told that she was sick. She spent just under two years in the camps, mostly with alcoholics and drug addicts. Other residents threatened to kill her.

Alexandra was released after she broke staircase fittings and threatened the management that she would continue to break things if she was not allowed to leave. 

A lawyer who used to work for a human rights group specialising in LGBTQ+ issues told the newspaper that many people left these institutions "somehow mentally broken", believing that something was wrong with them.

WP emphasises that the credibility of the victims’ stories cannot be verified, but this information coincides with reports by Russian independent media and international human rights groups about conversion therapy centres in Russia.

The newspaper reports that Putin is turning the LGBTQ+ community and anti-war activists into targets for harassment in an attempt to strengthen his rule.

The Washington Post suggests that he is resorting to anti-LGBT rhetoric in an attempt to gain support from conservative countries in Africa and the Middle East for a war against Ukraine.

Background: 

• On 30 November, the Supreme Court of Russia upheld the Ministry of Justice's application to ban "international LGBT public movement" as an extremist "organisation".
• Following this decision, police raided LGBT establishments in Moscow.

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