LGBTQ+ people are increasingly scapegoated by far-right politicians pushing a conservative agenda, leading to growing violence, an NGO report published Tuesday stated.
The crackdown is noticeable in a growing number of European countries, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe where right-wing forces are gaining power, according to the annual review of the European association of LGBTQ+ NGOs, ILGA-Europe. LGBTQ+ groups are being labeled as agents of foreign influence and had their access to health care, freedoms and visibility restricted to serve the countries’ conservative agenda, the report said.
This is fueling hate crime and normalizing hate speech against this community, the report added, pointing to an “unprecedented surge” in violence against LGBTQ+ people in 2024 across Europe.
In countries like Italy, Belgium or Romania, right-wing conservative groups have been accusing the LGBTQ+ community of “undermining family values and destabilising society” and used discriminatory speeches during election periods. This is then also used justify the introduction of legislation restricting fundamental freedoms and so-called “anti-LGBT propaganda” laws, the report stated.
In Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal, local authorities have reported “a significant increase in crimes motivated by perceived sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression,” ILGA-Europe noted.
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“There is a tendency to instrumentalize the so-called protection of young people as a hope to spread fear and division,” said Italian member of the European Parliament Alessandro Zan of the center-left Socialists and Democrats during an event in Parliament. “The discriminatory measures proposed in Hungary and Slovakia and the successful resolution in Italy against the so-called gender ideology all but spread hate and discrimination across Europe … These measures harm children, families and workers,” he added.
Chaber, the executive director of ILGA-Europe, also said that attacks against LGBTQ+ people are becoming “the testing ground for laws that erode democracy itself.”
“Across Europe and Central Asia, governments are using anti-LGBTI rhetoric to justify restrictions on free speech, civil society and fair elections,” Chaber explained, adding that “what begins as an attack on LGBTI rights rapidly grows into a wider assault on the rights and freedoms of all individuals in society.”
Ana Carla Pereira, director for equality and nondiscrimination at the European Commission’s justice department, said “this is for us a very worrying picture” and added the Commission remains “committed to uphold and advance LGBTQI rights” across the bloc.
She also said that, at a time where financing for civil society organizations is becoming more scarce, the Commission “would like to keep on providing that financing” but that it will depend on the co-legislators and which investments they decide to prioritize in the next European Union long-term budget for 2028-2034.
“I just want to confirm that these partnerships are really important to us,” Pereira said.
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