The Commissioner for Administration and Protection of Human Rights, Maria Stylianou-Lottidis, intervened regarding a video that contains extreme racist speech.
As she states in her intervention, "it has been made public today , January 11, 2023, homophobic rant video of an alleged National Guard non-commissioned officer posted on his social media account.
The Commissioner states that this is an event that unfolds “feelings of disgust and strong condemnation of this extreme racist speech, which degrades and destroys human dignity and constitutes rhetoric, which, in the context of copying and imitation, could lead other persons to , through a successive sequence of similar behaviors in the creation of a potential for committing violent acts against the LGBTI community”.
According to Ms. Lottidou, the disputed video confirms that, despite any positive developments that have taken place in a legal framework to strengthen the protection of the human rights of the LGBTI community, in practice, community members, remain extremely vulnerable to homophobic perceptions, attitudes and behaviors and experience intense racism and multiple discrimination every day.
"The determination to combat such attitudes, criminal and non-criminal, against the LGBTI community, also reflects the quality of our society and for this reason I call on the Ministry of Defense, since the person in question is indeed an officer of the National Guard, to thoroughly investigate the incident, based on the motive of prejudice , and to take immediate and decisive measures, so as to avoid behaviors that stigmatize persons and reproduce homophobic stereotypes and prejudices, potentially leading to hate crimes”, concludes the Commissioner.
Source: KYPE
