Man left with 15 stitches in his face after violent homophobic attack in Chile
A gay man in Chile has been left with severe cuts all over his body and face after he was viciously attacked with a piece of broken glass.
Patricio Díaz Bravo, who works as an animator, needed 15 stitches in his face after it was cut in a homophobia motivated attack this weekend.
An LGBT organisation in Chile, Movilh, said that a woman carried out the attack after hurling homophobic abuse at him.
She reportedly called him “colipato” and “maricon”, both of which are Spanish slang words meaning queer and faggot.
Díaz Bravo told Movilh that blood poured from his face after he was cut with the glass and he fled the pub where he was attacked quickly.
He said: “I ran out of the place.
“I wasn’t able to do much else because the blood was pouring from my face and I had to find a way to fix what happened to me.”
Movilh has denounced the assault and called for the attacker, who they did name, to get the “maximum sentence possible”.
“We hope justice is served,” they said.
The group also reported that it was not the first time the woman had used homophobic slurs against Díaz Bravo.
On the same weekend, Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, sent a same-sex marriage bill to congress.
The bill was proposed in 2015 as the country begins to enforce a number of liberal reforms.
When it was proposed, Bachelet had pledged to send a full bill to legislators before the year was up.
Speaking outside of La Moneda presidential palace, she said that the bill was crucial for the country to move forward.
“We do this with the certainty that it is not ethical nor fair to put artificial limits on love, nor to deny essential rights just because of the sex of those who make up a couple,” Bachelet said.
Chile is following other south American countries in legalising same-sex marriage.
Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Mexico all legalised it in recent years.
