This is the moment a gay man is apparently set upon by a group of men and women before being left bloodied and beaten in an alleged homophobic attack outside a nightclub.
The incident took place at the exit of the gay night club ‘Deseo54’ in the city of Valencia, in the eastern Spanish region of the same name and was recorded by onlookers.
Video Credit: CEN/@MarrazzoFab
In the video, a gay man named in reports as Italian national Lucas, 25, from Milan, can be seen wearing a yellow top and being confronted by a gang of aggressors.
One of the topless men then punches Luca in the face twice but the Italian fights back. A woman behind the camera can be heard saying “call the police” as two women join in the aggression.
The fight ends up on the ground before the gang march away from the scene.
Luca’s boyfriend Andrea posted photos of the victim’s injuries to his face on social media. Andrea said the gang had been verbally abusing the couple before the fight which left Andrea bleeding from the mouth.
Fabrizio Marrazzo, spokesman for Gay Center, who share the video on social media, wrote: “It happened at the exit from a club: they shouted offensive phrases at him, a friend tried to defend him and he received punches and kicks to the face causing bruises and wounds everywhere.”
The police were not called and the victim’s boyfriend wrote on social media that they went to a hospital by themselves for a check-up. He claimed the nurses were rude to them, saying that they could not help them as there was only one doctor who could do an MRI scan.
After an hour of waiting in the hospital room there was a shift change and another nurse came saying that there was no radiology doctor but another doctor had entered for the 9 o’clock shift and Luca would be taken care of immediately.
The couple entered the La Feand Hospital at 5 am and left at 10 am. Luckily there was no internal bleeding.
The Gay Help Line released a statement saying: “Our request – declares Fabrizio Marrazzo, head of the Gay Help Line and Gay Center spokesperson – is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should intervene as soon as possible, activating itself in support of attacked young people, to prevent the attackers from going unpunished.
“We recall that Spain has protected homosexual people since 1995 in its penal code, while in Italy there is no law against homophobia. What happened in Valencia, happens every day in Italy, in the deafening silence of politics.”
It is unclear if an investigation has been launched.
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Story By: Jana Tomovska, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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