Gay activist wearing Israel shirt attacked in Chile by ‘neo-Nazis’
A gay, Jewish activist has been attacked by a group of three men in Chile.
The three men were allegedly carrying neo-Nazi symbols when they attacked the man in a park in Santiago.
Jorge Arce was walking through the Bustamante park wearing a t-shirt which had the flag of Israel on it. Arce said that the t-shirt, which was a gift from his mother, caused the attackers to charge at him.
They reportedly called Arce a “murderer”, punched him in the throat and made cuts on his arms and legs with a small razor blade according to El Mostrador.
“I had forty stitches on my arm. Some will be forever. Just for being Jewish. The pain overwhelms me,” he told the Movement for Integration and Homosexual Liberation (MOVILH).
The group denounced the attack, calling it “an anti-Semitic and homophobic aggression.”
“We repudiate this attack of hate, which deserves all legal and social sanction. Of course we will support the legal actions that the Jewish community decides to initiate, who have always supported and shown solidarity with the victims of homophobia,” declared the MOVILH movement on its web page.
“We can not allow more victims of hate in out country, nothing justifies them.”
Arce is an active member of the Hod Jews for Diversity, a Jewish group for sexual minorities and supporters of LGBT rights.
Comunidad Judia de Chile, an umbrella Jewish organisation in the country, said: “We want to ensure that the Jewish Community of Chile is permanently concerned so that such acts do not occur in Chile and will take all measures to safeguard the rights of Jews and all minorities who may feel threatened by hate crimes.”
