LGTBIphobia monkeypox accuser facing two and a half years in prison

This Tuesday, the Valencia Court judges a man whom the Prosecutor’s Office accuses of a hate crime for publishing an article in which he attributed the origin of the disease known as monkeypox to the LGTBI community.

According to the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community, the Public Ministry maintains that on May 23, 2022, the man published a text on the website of an extreme right-wing political group, which does not have parliamentary representation, which reproduced later on social networks, in which he used offensive and humiliating expressions towards said group, aimed at spreading contempt, hostility and animosity towards them.

The Prosecutor’s Office requests a prison sentence of two and a half years for the defendant for a crime committed during the exercise of fundamental rights and public freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

The Valencia Provincial Prosecutor’s Office opened a total of 102 criminal investigation proceedings related to hate crimes in 2022, half of them due to LGTBIphobia, according to a report from the public ministry. Specifically, 46 proceedings were opened for discrimination based on LGTBIphobia, five of them for transphobia and two together with xenobia, “which confirms the ascending trend detected last year and which has reached overcome xenophobia and racism, which was previously the most frequent reason,” according to Susana Gisbert, delegate of the section for criminal protection of equality and against discrimination of the Valencia Prosecutor’s Office, stated in said report.

Xenophobia and racism occupy second place, alone or together with other reasons (40 proceedings). Of them, five were related to the war in Ukraine (Russophobia or fake news). Ideology did not motivate a single procedure, “which is striking compared to previous years,” says Gisbert. For its part, four other proceedings were initiated for reasons of disability; two by gender and one by religion.

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