This is the moment a man takes down a LGBT rainbow flag and cuts it into pieces with an accomplice ahead of the city’s annual Gay Pride parade.
According to reports, the man, identified as Luis Emilio Arboleda Arenas, destroyed the flag in the tourist area of Nutibara Hill in the city of Medellin in the north-western Colombian department of Antioquia.
In the footage viewed 500,000 times on Twitter, the man is seen cutting down the large flag from the pole and when it lands in the car park, a friend picks it up.
Together, the two men are seen cutting the rainbow flag into strips before throwing them in a bin.
Medellin mayor Federico Gutierrez said on social media that the incident was a “violent act of hate and discrimination”.
Reports said that the two men were tracked down and fined, and they will also have to attend an unspecified educational course.
They removed the flag one day before the city’s annual Gay Pride parade.
Netizen and LGBT activist ‘Mauricio Albarracin’ said on Twitter: “Some people removed the LGBT Pride flag that was raised in Medellin.
“They cut it was a knife and threw it in the rubbish, this is an act of intolerance and bigotry that we should emphatically reject.”
According to local media, Colombia has been celebrating Gay Pride since the 1980s, but often under a cloud of protests and violent incidents.
Netizen ‘AnaTrina’ said: “His masculinity was threatened by a flag. That is the way machos are.”
‘ElverGao01812258’ commented: “Fascism in its purest form.”
According to the NGO ‘Colombia Diversa’, 465 LGBT people have been killed in the country between 2013 and 2018.
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Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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