Commemoration brutally defiled – Transgender Day of Remembrance in Kiev attacked
For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov, 22nd 2010
The European network, Transgender Europe, is shocked over the brutal attack on the Transgender Day of Remembrance -TDoR in Kiev on Nov 20th.
In, what was obviously a planned attack, about ten masked men broke into the Visual Culture Center during a film screening, attacked the over thirty spectators with tear-gas and brutal violence and escaped unknown. Organizers of the event, who tried to stop them got beaten up, suffer as a result from internal injuries and facial chemical burn. All spectators present in the room during the attack suffered from tear-gas. The local Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender NGO “Insight” call the attack planned. “The attackers were wearing masks, they had weapons, their actions were consistent and deliberate, and they fled the scene at once.” The TDoR-event was publicly announced before. This and the stage of planning disqualify the police’s anticipation of the attack as “hooliganism”.
“It is an act of barbarism to violate the mourning of the death. This act of cowardice was not only targeted at the transgender community as whole but against everybody, who believes in the right to self-determination.” says Richard Köhler, co-chair of the Human Rights NGO Transgender Europe.
Reminding that Ukraine signed up to the Council of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)5, TGEU calls upon the police and the general prosecutor to investigate this planned attack as a hate crime and threat to the freedom of public assembly of LGBT people and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“Attacks like this and the ignorance of the police reinforce an atmosphere of Transphobia. TGEU’s Trans Murder Monitoring project found almost 180 reports of murdered trans people worldwide in the last 12 months, the majority victims of transphobic hate crime” adds Dr. Carsten Balzer, lead-researcher of the TGEU research project Transrespect versus Transphobic Worldwide.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is held worldwide, each year on November 20th. On this day, transgender people and others, who present themselves differently to common gender expressions, who got murdered are honored and remembered. In 2010 the TDoR was held in 40 cities in 14 countries in Europe.
END
Transgender Europe
Contact: tgeu@tgeu.org
www.transrespect-transphobia.org/