BY NATASHA BARSOTTI - Sixteen-year-old Amy (not her real
name) and her girlfriend were sitting on a bench in a public square in the Maltese town of Hamrun when
two teenaged brothers allegedly called them "twisted" and "lesbians,"
according to a report in the
Times of Malta.
The verbal harassment morphed into physical violence. The
two brothers descended from a balcony from which they were reportedly hurling
their insults, approached Amy and her girlfriend and began to hit and push
them. The older of the brothers picked Amy up, punched her and dragged her by
the hair in an attack that lasted 10 minutes before the police were called, the
Times reported.
In the end, Amy suffered a fractured nose from a head
butt and bruises to her face and breasts, while her girlfriend had scratches
on her wrists and a bruise on her head.
"It was a horrible experience," Amy told the
Times.
The Jan 13 incident was not the
first time the couple had encountered the two brothers, 17 and 19, who are now
charged with assault causing injury, the Times states. Previously, the
brothers had allegedly thrown eggs at the two women, who brushed off the
incident.
In the aftermath of the latest attack, the Malta Gay
Rights Movement (MGRM) and several NGOs have condemned the violence and called
for an expansion of hate crime legislation to include incidents involving
homophobia and transphobia.
"In many countries, such an assault would be
investigated as a hate crime, but Malta has yet to extend hate crime legislation
to include the grounds of homophobia and transphobia," a joint statement
by MGRM and the human rights group Aditus said.
People need to trust that police will take reports of
violence seriously, the groups added. As things stand, attacks against queer people
are common but most aren't reported to the police or in the media.
Since the incident, a few hundred people have registered
their support of a Facebook group called The Amy Initiative that calls for
hate crime based on sexual orientation to be recognized in Malta.
Landing image: timesofmalta.com
