Thursday, March 28

The victim of the homophobic attack in the Barcelona metro: “I no longer show affection in public”


The Observatori Contra l’Homofòbia (OCH) and the Barcelona City Council, which exercise private and popular prosecution in the trial against the three suspected of perpetrating a homophobic attack in the subway, ask that they be convicted of a hate crime.

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The OCH’s lawyer, Laia Serra, has declared that it is an attack that “undermines the rights of normal and free access to public space” and attributes to the defendants an alleged crime of aggravated injuries, attempted robbery and a crime homophobic hate. For all this, they ask for sentences of five years in prison.

Likewise, Serra has recalled that there has already been a trial in the juvenile jurisdiction against a fourth defendant in the same case, who was already convicted of a hate crime.

The trial was held this Friday morning for an assault suffered by a 23-year-old in 2019. The Councilor for Citizen Rights of Barcelona, ​​Marc Serra, lamented that the trial came “too late”. The trial should have been held in February, but was postponed because one of the defendants failed to appear.

Similarly, Serra has praised the work of the OCH when accompanying the victim and has valued the coordinated work between the administration and the entities. Through this coordination, the protocol for the prevention of LGTBIFobic attacks on public transport in Barcelona has been drawn up, driven precisely by this case.

Fear of public transport

According to the accusations, the attack occurred at six in the morning on January 12, 2019, when the victim entered the subway on his way to work. Then, the defendants, who were returning from a nightclub, would have rebuked the young man and would have asked him about his sexual orientation.

When the tension rose, the victim would have decided to get out of the car, followed by the attackers, who would have thrown him to the ground and hit him in the head and face. The aggression stopped when the subway security guards arrived.

The victim has assured that, after the attack, he had to go live outside of Barcelona for fear of traveling by public transport. Furthermore, she has also stated that she “has a hard time holding hands with other guys. I no longer show affection in public.”

Given this, the OCH spokesman, Cristian Carrer, lamented that these cases “are not settled by sentencing” and has asked that it be complemented with educational actions and reparation measures. “The recovery of the affected people must be guaranteed, offering a wide range of resources because these cases can generate a lot of emotional fatigue,” he insisted.



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