Violence against Gays in Amsterdam...

This is a cross post from the Gates of Vienna blog...

Growing violence against gays in the Netherlands prompted gay rights organizations to mount a demonstration in Amsterdam yesterday. It is a well-known fact — although not always a publicly-acknowledged one — that most of the anti-gay violence comes from Muslim immigrants or their Dutch-born descendents.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report about yesterday’s incidents based on Dutch-language sources. He includes this explanatory note:

The protest was a response to the continuing wave of anti-gay violence in Amsterdam. In recent weeks, gay and lesbians were abused on the Zeedijk, in the Reguliersdwarsstraat and the Muiderpoort-Station. [source]

First, from Het Parool:

Gays threatened during demonstration

Amsterdam — gay demo #2AMSTERDAM — A demonstration of two thousand gay and lesbians against anti-gay violence Sunday was ruined by a series of incidents. In one of them a demonstrator[1] was injured at the hands of two women of 18 and 19 years. Afterwards the demonstrator reported the perpetrators to the police. They were both subsequently detained, but set free on Monday.

The two women wanted to get through a group of demonstrators on the Westermarkt with their bikes, shortly after the march had ended. When the man said something about it, they shouted insulting remarks at him. This resulted in a fight in which the man was hit by the two women. When one of the woman hit him with a bag, he was wounded in the head. The man and bystanders managed to hold the girls until the police arrived.

[Note: Shortly after the demonstration against anti-gay violence a boy was beaten up by two Moroccan girls. This was reported by eyewitnesses who were present. (source) — VH]

But there were more incidents. On Monday, the reports poured in to a gay-rights organization, the foundation “Right to Feel Safe”, as spokesman Fya Hopelezz said.

For example, there were boys on scooters [see article below; these may have been Moroccans] who repeatedly drove onto the protesters. A group of lesbians was threatened, verbally abused and pelted with beer cans [see also the article below], and several fights had to be calmed down.

“This makes me very sad. It shows how rock-hard the situation is now in Amsterdam,” says Hopelezz. “The anger sits deep in the gay community. Anger over the violence, but also because everyone keeps saying that anti-gay violence is not that bad within the city.”