Watch: ‘It Started With Pufta, And It Ended With A Gun’ – Maltese MEP Delivers Impassioned Speech After LGBTQI+ Double Murder
A Maltese MEP delivered an impassioned speech in the European Parliament following the double murder of two gay men in Slovakia suspected to be hate crimes.
“It started with a word – they called us pufta, dyke, faggot – but it ended with a knife, a fist, or in this case, a gun,” Cyrus Engerer said in front of Europe’s policymakers.
“That’s the reality we face when our community and our leadership don’t take hate speech seriously.”
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Engerer’s address comes after an estimated 20,000 people gathered for a vigil outside a Bratislava gay bar where the two men, Matúš Horváth and Juraj Vankulič, were shot dead.
Following the murders, the country is demanding action on LGBTQI+ rights and protections, with Slovak President Zuzana Caputova even raising a rainbow flag over her office.
Engerer slammed the deaths as “the result of inaction in the face of growing radicalisation of far right and conservative narratives”.
“We lost two of our siblings to hate and intolerance – our community saw the warning signs in every tweet, post, hand gesture. They were allowed because the right wing distracted our political discourse with talk of pronouns and wokeness in the face of rising radicalisation.”
Engerer ended by urging Europe’s political leaders to “take more action on the rising hate – once again, our community it begging you” to applause within Parliament’s walls.
Have you ever faced hate speech, or worse, for your sexual orientation?
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