Petrelis Files

Greek Gays Excluded from Hate Crime Decree 

Andrea Gilbert, an American expat living Greece is a spokesperson for the Athens Pride organization and she is circulating a news release detailing how LGBT citizens are excluded from taking advantage of resources to combat hate crimes.

The Athens Pride releases mentions that one anti-gay attack was spurred on by a member of the rightwing political party New Dawn who also retains a seat in parliament. New Dawn's leaders have exploited the economic crisis to stir up racism and xenophobia across Greece.

Let's wish the Greek gay community all the best in forcing their government and police forces to take hate crimes against us seriously, and work with LGBT leaders to create bodies and policies that protect gays.

From the Athens Pride release: 

Greek lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender persons who suffer homophobic and transphobic attacks will have no access to the new specialized Hate Crime Units, because Greek lawmakers have willfully omitted all reference to sexual orientation and gender identity from the new “anti-racist” Presidential Decree, contravening European Union recommendations.

Drafted by the Minister of Public Order and Citizen Protection Nikolas-Georgios Dendias and signed by the President of the Hellenic Republic Karolos Papoulias, on 12 September 2012, the Decree establishes specialized hate crime units for addressing racist violence within the General Police Directorates of Attica and Thessaloniki and relevant offices within police stations with a mission to prevent and investigate such crimes.

However, as stated in Article 1 of the Decree, these agencies will handle only “offenses committed against persons or group of persons exclusively and solely because of their racial or ethnic origin or their religion.” . . . 

By blatantly disregarding the problem of homophobic and transphobic crimes in Greek society, the public agency mandated to protect all its citizens is essentially denying the personhood of some of its most vulnerable members. This is particularly disgraceful given the recent spate of documented assaults on LGBT persons and groups, at least one incited by a Golden Dawn parliamentarian. 

The actual number of assaults is impossible to estimate because gays, lesbians and transgender persons overwhelmingly refuse to report hate crimes to the police.