Austria’s first openly gay politician was reportedly sprayed with butyric acid while giving an interview on the sidelines of Vienna’s gay pride parade on Sunday.
According to reports, Ulrike Lunacek and the camera crew surrounding her were unharmed in the assault. For what it’s worth, Wikipedia notes that the topical application of butyric acid is non-lethal and that it’s most commonly found in cheeses and goat milk, making it a prime ingredient for stink bombs.
The substance caused around €50,000 (~$67,723) damage to the camera equipment.
Lunacek, leader of the Austrian Greens’ delegation to the EU parliament, addressed the incident later that day in a speech at Vienna’s City Hall.
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According to the Local:
“Never before has there been an attack at the Rainbow Parade,” said Lunacek at the end of the event at Vienna’s City Hall. These kinds of isolated cases showed that the fight for tolerance, acceptance and respect in Austria was not over. People who spread fear and hate needed to be opposed, she added. Homosexuals and transgender people needed to combat fear and show that they were not only part of society, but at the centre of it, said the EU MP.
The assailant, described as wearing a white polo shirt, having dark hair and “a rather solid stature,” miraculously got away in the crowd of 150,000+ revelers.
Earlier this month, three gay men were sprayed in the face with bleach outside a nightclub in London. Unlike Lunacek, they faced life-altering conditions and could deal with scarring for the rest of their lives.
hex0
The backlash against gays keeps getting worse. It’ll be interesting to see who the perpetrator was, Muslim’s seem to be a big fan of the acid attack route.
masc4masc
i’m sure it’s not her first time getting sprayed in the face with a foul-scented liquid.
DickieJohnson
@hex0: I doubt there’s any shortage of Euro-gay-haters. A$$holes and bigots seem to be pretty well distributed worldwide, and probably will remain so for a long time to come. There’s always been “Us” and “them”, and with some religions and governments being determined to remain primitive, for purposes of control, don’t look for any improvement this century.
BECQueerty
Horrible, just horrible.
jabuka
@hex0: As someone who lives in Vienna, I think it probably was not a Muslim. There have never been attacks such as this perpetrated by Muslims in Austria. Muslims in Austria are mostly Turkish (much more moderate than Arabs) and are not that politically involved in order to be able to pinpoint an MP from the Green Party and target her specifically. If anything, her party is very friendly to immigrants. Romanians, on the other hand have been attacking people all over the city. But I doubt it was them either. A homophobic Muslim or Romanian would attack any gay person in the parade (not with a stink bomb, though), as opposed to her specifically, since her role in the parade was marginal.
On the other hand, Lunacek has been a hate symbol of the far right. She is not just any gay MP. She is one of the leading representatives of gay people in the EU parliament. Recently she started an EU-wide initiative for a universal protection measures for LGBT people. As a result, on online forums of mainstream publications most people (native Austrians) have been calling the attacker a hero.
The article fails to mention that there was a Christian anti-gay demonstration on the same day at a nearby cathedral and that the attacker was probably linked to them.
Harley
Onward Xtian soldiers. What a truly noble and selfless act to spray acid on people and then run away In a crowd. NOT. Seems the religulous can’t win arguments anymore so violence is next, and then THEY claim to be the victims. JEESES.
Billysees
@DickieJohnson:
Well expressed comment. I would modify this part though —
“…don’t look for any improvement this century.” to read “…look for improvement sooner rather than latter.”
@Harley:
That hymn ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ has faced much criticism since 1977. See – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onward,_Christian_Soldiers – later history.
Christendom is slowly improving its attitudes towards LGBT’s. Like all great works, it is subject to the ‘3 steps forward, 1 or 2 steps backward rule’.