Anti-LGBTQ Assault In Thessaloniki, Greece Condemned By Doc Pageant

Greece’s Thessaloniki Worldwide Documentary Pageant is reacting with shock to an incident Saturday night time wherein two LGBTQ individuals had been attacked by an enormous crowd in a sq. outdoors one of many competition’s fundamental screening venues.

Based on native information stories and movies posted to YouTube, a crowd of youths numbering between 150 to 300 started shouting abuse at two 21-year-old self-identified nonbinary individuals, then hurled bottles at them and chased the pair into a close-by restaurant.

“The mob continued to harass them, banging on the window of the restaurant,” one information website reported, “urging the employees to ship them out. The harassment continued even when police arrived on the scene.”

The incident happened round 10:30 p.m. in Aristotelous Sq., the place the historic Olympion cinema is positioned – the most important screening venue for the documentary competition. The victims might be noticed briefly on the finish of the video beneath:

One of many victims advised newsit.gr they had been visiting from Athens after they had been set upon by the group. “Out of nowhere, many teams began approaching us, whistling, cursing us,” one of many targets of the assault mentioned. “I used to be personally spat on, one pulled my jacket, they pushed us, they threw bottles at us.”

The violent outburst, although not linked with TiDF per se, takes place as this 12 months’s competition acknowledges the LGBTQ expertise and nonfiction cinema dedicated to documenting the group, with a particular part it’s calling Citizen Queer.

“The information of the assault in opposition to two trans individuals, which happened on Saturday night time at Aristotelous Sq., stuffed us with anger and repugnance,” TiDF mentioned in a press release shared with Deadline. “The Pageant unreservedly and explicitly condemns any act of homophobic and racist violence, sending out a loud and clear message of tolerance, inclusivity, acceptance and visibility via the total scope of its actions: the twenty sixth TiDF’s large-scale tribute ‘Citizen Queer’ that includes LGBTQI+ documentaries, talks and displays from acclaimed audio system, its lineup of movies, the Mermaid Award, in addition to its help in direction of the upcoming EuroPride.”

The assertion continued, “As now we have repeatedly said, the Pageant discards any acts of hatred and violence and the extremist voices of intolerance and racism, serving as an open platform of artwork, inclusivity and dialogue.”

The Citizen Queer program includes a slate of 25 movies, from new work to benchmarks of LGBTQ nonfiction cinema like The Celluloid Closet, the 1995 movie directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman that unpacked the historical past of homosexual imagery in Hollywood. A number of movies by director Panayotis Evangelidis are being screened, together with 2022’s Tilos Weddings, “which focuses on the primary homosexual and lesbian weddings held in Greece, in 2008, within the island of Tilos.”

Maria Katsikadakou, often known as Maria Cyber, who serves as one of many particular consultants to Citizen Queer, advised Deadline she was not shocked to listen to of the violent incident in Aristotelous Sq..

“Fascism is rising, the fascist conduct is rising,” she mentioned. “It’s so essential… to stroll on the street just like the streets belong to us, too. It’s an terrible worry that they attempt to create inside us via intimidation. They attempt to oppress us, to place us down. And that is the second now we have to face out proud.”

She added, “In society, now we have achieved so many issues, so many rights. It’s the second that now we have to don’t have any tolerance for any sort of fascism, racism, homophobia, sexism, patriarchy. We’ve to lift our voices… We’re the guardian angels in society for justice, for equality. We battle for ages. We can not give this victory to them. We can’t be afraid of them.”

Final month, the Greek parliament authorised same-sex marriage, the primary majority Orthodox Christian nation to legalize such unions. However the laws has met with intense backlash from the Orthodox Church. Based on the Related Press, a church physique on the island of Corfu imposed a spiritual ban on two legislators who voted to approve the same-sex marriage regulation. Church officers there accused the lawmakers of committing “the deepest religious and ethical error,” in line with the AP report.

Simply three days in the past, a Greek author and his accomplice had been married in a civil ceremony, turning into the primary same-sex couple to have their union acknowledged since passage of the same-sex marriage regulation.

“The Greek capital’s mayor officiated on the civil wedding ceremony on Thursday of Petros Hadjopoulos, who writes underneath the pen title Auguste Corteau, and lawyer Anastasios Samouilidis,” the AP reported. “Hadjopoulos mentioned the occasion was ‘a dream that we didn’t dare entertain after we had been in our teenagers.’”

In June, Thessaloniki will host EuroPride, an occasion celebrating the LGBTQI group that has beforehand been held in Paris, London, Stockholm, Madrid, and different main European cities. Maria Cyber, certainly one of Greece’s first lesbian activists, says town has loads of work to do in preparation.

“The mayor has to assist, and the group operating it, they’ve rather a lot to do… to make the city protected for queers,” she mentioned. She advises town to place up posters and disseminate adverts in print and on radio “that say no tolerance to homophobia, no tolerance to fascism. They should make a marketing campaign, so when the tip of June comes and EuroPride [happens], individuals have already got been bombarded with data in opposition to the homophobia, in opposition to fascism, in opposition to sexism, et cetera, transphobia, lesbian phobia. So, there’s loads of work that must be accomplished.”

Cyber mentioned the purpose of such a marketing campaign is, “As an alternative of creating the fascist voice stronger, to place them again of their cave the place they belong, really.”

Within the video beneath, one of many victims of the assault speaks in regards to the incident (in Greek).