Earlier this week, as reported by our sister sister LGBTQ Nation, a Spanish gay man reported what appeared to be a horrendous homophobic attack. He said eight masked assailants invaded his Madrid home and sliced the words ‘faggot’ into his buttocks.
Related: Madrid Pride in Spain draws thousands out on to the streets
He’s now changed his story and has told police the wounding was consensual.
The incident took place on Sunday. The unnamed 20-year-old first said the group followed him into the hallway of his home and began to verbally abuse him. They then slashed his lower lip with a knife and carved the word into his buttocks.
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News of the attack shocked the country and led to widespread condemnation. Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, was among those to speak out against hate crime.
Members of the LGBTQ community, following a spate of other attacks including the high-profile homophobic murder of a gay man, Samuel Luiz, two months ago in Galicia, organized rallies against anti-LGBTQ hate.
Yesterday, police and the country’s Interior Ministry announced the man had changed his story.
“The man has changed his statement and has said that the assault was consensual,” a Policía Nacional spokesperson told The Guardian.
Despite this, a large protest went ahead in Madrid last night, protesting against anti-LGBTQ violence. One of the groups involved said that this one incident should not take away from a reported rise in anti-LGBTQ hate crime.
“Over the past few days, there have been attacks in Toledo, in Melilla, in Castellón and in Vitoria. [We will protest because] they killed Samuel for being gay and because those of you reading this have also had to suffer violence, harassment, fear and the danger of death.”
Related: Three arrested following brutal hate crime-murder of a gay man in Spain
Spain’s equality minister, Irene Montero, tweeted: “Hate crimes against the LGBTI collective rose 43% during the first half of 2021. Let’s not lose sight of the forest because of one tree.”
Los delitos de odio contra el colectivo LGTBI se han incrementado en un 43% en el primer semestre de 2021. Que el árbol no nos impida ver el bosque.
— Irene Montero (@IreneMontero) September 8, 2021
Police say the 20-year-old may now face charges for making false claims.
Cam
Sounds like the group threatened him or his family.
CatholicXXX
I can see that being true.
Vince
Kind of like Jussie Smollet’s case. However, I’m not seeing the upside for him to lie about the attack. If they have the power to just break into your place anytime I could see his fear motivating him to recant.
Kangol2
Why lie about an attack like this, especially when anti-LGBTQ is real and many homophobes and transphobes refuse to take it seriously or try to justify it? Maybe the attackers did threaten him, and the authorities should keep a close eye on them.
ShiningSex
Idiots like this are partially why attacks are not believed.
Bengali
Considering he may have been threatened if he out the assailants who have easy access to his home, he was very possibly coerced into changing his story. We don’t know for sure but before comparing him to once amazing/now washed up lying Jussie Smollett is a bit uninformed.
Prowelsh56
Charge him. How vapid and stupid. While we have trans teens being murdered we have members of ” our ” community doing such things. Sets us all back.
Fahd
There’s something about what the police found on the cctv and the accuser’s story that doesn’t jibe, so it may be more complicated than “he’s recanting out of fear of reprisal”.
Now some right wing politicians in Spain are accusing the non-right-wing politicians who, because of this alleged hate crime, spoke out against homophobia/hate crimes of exaggerating the problems of hate crimes and homophobia in Spain and trying to exploit (invent) what is really not that big of a deal. Oh brother!
Halfnhalf
How do we know he really changed his story. Maybe the police “encouraged” him to change it. (wink, wink, nod, nod)
nm4047
if this guy was in the US I could see why he made a false statement, he would have his own talk show by now, but can’t understand a citizen of another country making such claims.
Hank31
According to other media reports, he admitted that he made up the story about a hate crime b/c he didn’t want to lose his “current partner” – which presumably might have happened if the current partner learned that he had engaged in consensual BDSM sex with other people.
So the bottom line is that this guy is a lying, cheating, promiscuous POS, who gets off on having anti-gay slurs carved into his body. And he was happy to terrify LGB Spaniards, rile Spanish society and waste police resources in order to deceive his partner. Infidelity and promiscuity go hand-in-hand with bad character.
BoomerMyles
Can’t believe that assertion just based on “other media reports”.
Hank31
“In a fresh statement to police on Wednesday, the 20-year-old man said there had been no attack and that he had allowed another man to carve the word into his backside, the online edition of the newspaper El Pais reported, citing police.
He claims he lied in order to not lose his current partner.
Reports from RTVE and El Pais indicate he was trying to conceal another sexual relationship.”
www[dot].dpa-international[dot]com/topic/gay-man-alleged-homophobic-attack-spain-says-made-it-urn%3Anewsml%3Adpa.com%3A20090101%3A210909-99-146842
rural queer socialist
Goes to show
how what sorts of LIES & deception, VIOLENCE & harm, lives in the kink communities!
They claim to be all about ‘consent’ but typically DECIEVE AND LIE about that. They claim to be all about ‘sexual health’ but include inherently unhealthy practices of consuming defecation, filth, and other dangerous substance, bleeding, bodily harm, organ and system injuries and insults, psychological harms, etc.
Perhaps queer leadership will eventually learn to call harm as harm, violence as violence, and hate as hate … instead of continuing their own sorts of MONEYGRUBBING LIES.
strap2900
Sounds like he was afraid of his attackers coming back to finish the job.