Alleged victim of homophobic attack steps back and talks about his actions

“The young man, who filed a complaint on Sunday claiming to be the victim of an attack in the Malasaña area of ​​Madrid, decided to correct his initial statement and said that the injuries he allegedly received were received with consent,” sources at the Ministry of the Interior said. cases. said AFP.

The 20-year-old claimed to have been attacked by eight masked men in the lobby of his building in the Malasaña district of Madrid, and that the attackers carried out homophobic insults, cut his lip with a penknife and wrote “marikon” on his buttocks.

The alleged attack sparked an outcry among the political class, with left-wing parties accusing the far-right Vox party of encouraging homophobic attacks.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez hastened to convene a government commission on hate crimes and to express his “strongest condemnation” of the attack.

The left-wing Vamos party, a minority in the ruling coalition, said on social media Wednesday that “Vox has plunged the country into hatred of a group that is being violently attacked in the streets.”

This version change has generated a number of Twitter responses.

“Hate crimes against LGTBI increased 43 percent in the first half of 2021,” Equality Minister Irene Montero said, urging her not to focus “on the tree hiding the forest.”

Director and activist Javier Giner, claiming “powerlessness” and “anger,” tweeted that “this idiot came alone to bring water to the mill of all ultra-performances and all aggressors.”

The events took place just two months after the murder of a young homosexual in the north of the country, an alleged homophobic attack that sparked anger and widespread protests in Spain.

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