Commemoration brutally defiled - Transgender Day of Remembrance in Kiev attacked

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.tgeu.org

http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/