A new municipal LGBT centre in Barcelona was attacked at the weekend by vandals who spray-painted homophobic slurs and broke windows, prompting the municipal government of Mayor Ada Colau to call on public prosecutors to investigate and bring the attackers to justice.
The overnight incident occurred just one week after Colau inaugurated the Municipal Center for LGTBI Resources on Carrer Comte de Borrell in the heart of the city’s Gayxample area of Barcelona’s Example Esquerra neighborhood.
The attackers spray-painted the words ‘You are Dead” and “Fuck LGBT” on the window of the center, along with a symbol that appeared to be a telescopic rifle site, but which also resembles a Celtic cross used by neo-Nazi organizations. A spokesperson for the city government said the attack was homophobic and fascist and the city would call for prosecution under Spain’s hate-crimes legislation.
Mayor Colau, who last year came out as bisexual in a public television interview, said via her Twitter account that the attackers “should know that they don’t scare us. On the contrary, more than ever we feel pride in being a diverse city and in the joy of loving who we want and how we want. In Barcelona, #lovewins.”
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