The number of alleged anti-“LGBTQ+” attacks in Europe spiked in 2022, a year that also saw the highest number of asylum seekers arrive on the continent since the 2016 migrant crisis.
Attacks on “LGBTQ+” people in Europe are said to have reached a decade high in 2022 according to a report published on Monday, with the document linking the increased violence to the activities of the political right. Yet the document made no effort to investigate the impact of mass migration on alternative sexual communities, despite many of the brutal attacks on minorities outlined in the report are reported to have been committed by individuals with migration and Islamic faith backgrounds.
Europe experienced a ‘quiet migration crisis’ last year, with a surge in the number of foreign migrants arriving in 2022, at nearly one million people claiming asylum across the bloc approaching 2016 levels.
According to a press release by the report publisher, Europe’s International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, 2022 represented “the most violent year for LGBTI people” across both Europe and Central Asia, something it linked to “widespread hate speech from politicians, religious leaders, right-wing organisations and media pundits”.
The organisation describes such “hate speech” as having hit “critical levels”, with the document citing two terror attacks that took place in gay bars in Norway and Slovakia as evidence for this.
“We have seen proof that anti-LGBTI hate speech is not just the words of marginal leaders or would-be autocrats, but a real problem with dire consequences for people and communities,” the NGO’s director, Evelyne Paradis, claimed.
The report gives no mention of the possible effect immigration into Europe may have had on the sudden rise in violence against “LGBTQ+” people, despite the broad rise in violence coinciding with a sudden surge of asylum claims in Europe within the same year.
The document also largely avoids discussing the impact of radical Islam in relation to any killings, with the words “Islam” and “Muslim” usually only being used in passing while discussing other issues.
Such omissions are particularly striking when considering that many of the most violent attacks listed in the report involve suspects with faith and migrant backgrounds.
For instance, at least one of the two terror attacks cited by the NGO as evidence for soaring violence is thought to have been motivated by radical Islam, with police linking the event to suspects with migration backgrounds from Iran and Pakistan. This background is not explored in the report.
Other incidents mentioned in the report also appear to have had their Islamic and migrant links left out of the finished document. The publication mentions the killing of two men in Sligo, Ireland last year, though refrains from mentioning that the man behind bars awaiting trial for the incident of Middle-Eastern origin, with it being suggested that the killings were inspired by “religious zeal”.
Also mentioned by the report is the murder of a “migrant trans [sex] worker” in France, with the document describing two men as being convicted for the killing last year. What it fails to mention is that both men, Mahmoud Kadri and Karim Ibrahim, were of Egyptian heritage.
The report also links the reader to an incident of what it calls “attacks against trans women” in Germany, though leaves out in the text that the attack involved the victim first being insulted by their three assailants “in Arabic“.
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