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In Haiti, Gay Couple’s Engagement Party Attacked By Angry, Bomb-Throwing Mob

Gay-Wedding-RingsA violent mob in Haiti interrupted a gay couple’s engagement ceremony with rocks and molotov cocktails on Saturday as homophobic violence continues to escalate in the beleaguered island-nation.

Symptomatic of a country in which anti-gay crimes are fairly rampant, this recent attack left several people injured and two cars destroyed in the capital of Port-Au-Prince. Luckily, police arrived in time to prevent any fatalities.

“This is a criminal act and homophobic,” Charlot Jeudy, an activist from Haitian gay rights group Kouraj (Courage), told AFP. “There is no justification for this kind of attack on people in a private residence.”

The victims, one of whom is a British Red Cross member named Max, have refused to speak of the attack publicly for fear of incurring further violence against them.

This rash of violence against the Haitian LGBT community was possibly catalyzed by a march by the Haitian Coalition of Religious and Moral Organizations that incorrectly claimed a gay marriage bill was heading to parliament. Following the march, 47 anti-gay attacks took place in the span of one week, with mobs wielding blades, cement blocks, sticks, and iron bars.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has condemned the increasing violence, saying, “It is imperative that Haiti [adopts] effective measures to prevent the repetition of these types of acts of violence and discrimination in the future.”

Unfortunately, at this moment we do not know how much weight this condemnation carries.

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