“We repudiate this attack of hate, which deserves all legal and social sanction.”
A young Jewish gay advocate was attacked in a park in Santiago, Chile, by three men wearing neo-Nazi symbols. The men punched him in the neck and slashed his arms and legs with a razor more than 40 times.
Jorge Arce was walking through Bustamante Park wearing a t-shirt with the Israeli flag on it, when the three assailants yelled “murderer” and attacked him.
“I had 40 stitches on my arm. Some will be forever,” he told the Movement for Integration and Homosexual Liberation (MOVILH), “Just for being Jewish. The pain overwhelms me.”
A representative for MOVILH called the attack “an act of anti-Semitic and homophobic aggression.”
“We repudiate this attack of hate, which deserves all legal and social sanction… We will support the legal actions that the Jewish community decides to initiate [and have] always supported and shown solidarity with the victims of homophobia.”
In 2012, Daniel Zamudio, a young gay man, was tortured and murdered in San Borja Park in downtown Santiago by four attackers linked to neo-Nazi groups. His death and the subsequent media attention it sparked led to the passage of anti-discrimination laws in Chile, as well as a greater discussion of LGBT rights in the country.
While Chile’s hate-crime laws cover gender identity and sexual orientation, and gay men may donate blood, same-sex marriage and adoption are still not legal. President Michelle Bachelet said she would send a marriage equality bill to Congress in the first half of 2017.
