Attack on two transgender folks shocks Greek metropolis because of host Pride occasion | EUROtoday

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Two transgender folks have been attacked in Greece in a metropolis because of host a global Pride occasion later this yr.

Nine folks have been jailed and might be tried on Monday over accusations they harassed and threatened two 21-year-old transgender individuals within the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki.

The 9 had been remanded after showing earlier than a prosecutor on Sunday. Twelve different folks, all kids, had been launched pending trial on the identical costs earlier than a juvenile courtroom.

News web site thestival.gr studies the incident occurred at 10.30pm in a central sq. within the metropolis common with vacationers. It provides that the 2 folks ran from the mob into a close-by restaurant and had bottles thrown at them.

Police stated among the group then tried to enter the restaurant.

Police arrived and led the victims away, detaining the suspects on the spot. It was whereas they had been escorted out of the restaurant that the 2 folks had been hit by bottles, police stated, including that they weren’t critically injured.

The costs embrace abuse with bigoted intent. Two of the adults, who allegedly threw bottles on the transgender individuals, had been additionally charged with assault.

The assault occurred as the town hosts the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

Videos of the incident have been posted on-line with a gang of younger folks showing to be shouting abuse.

Thessaloniki is because of host EuroPride this yr, a global LGBT+ occasion that includes a Pride parade, hosted by a unique European metropolis annually.

The metropolis received the occasion in October 2017 and it was because of happen in Thessaloniki in 2020 however was cancelled because of the pandemic. It will now be between June 21 and 29.

Police stated they’re on the lookout for extra individuals who might need been concerned within the incident that drew widespread condemnation from politicians.

Greece’s resolution final month to legalize same-sex marriage and grant full parental rights to same-sex {couples} has confronted backlash from the Orthodox church and from the far proper.

While polls present {that a} slender majority of Greek public opinion backs same-sex marriage, the Church has made it clear its ideas on the legalisation. On Tuesday, Church officers on the island of Corfu imposed a spiritual ban on two native lawmakers who voted for the reform.

Greece is the primary majority Orthodox Christian nation to permit same-sex marriage. It legalized same-sex civil unions almost a decade in the past.

Last week a novelist and his accomplice turned the primary same-sex couple to be married in Athens’ metropolis corridor.

The Greek capital’s mayor officiated on the civil wedding ceremony of Petros Hadjopoulos, who writes below the pen identify Auguste Corteau, and lawyer Anastasios Samouilidis.

Hadjopoulos stated the occasion was “a dream that we didn’t dare entertain when we were in our teens.”

“There is a symbolism to this,” he advised The Associated Press. “I understand that (marriage) doesn’t work for everyone, but for people who grew up in Greece in the 1980s and 90s, when guys like us lived a very lonely existence, even symbols have a great value.”

The couple arrived with their canine, to the applause of greater than two dozen visitors.