A 25-year-old Romanian man severely beat two young women on a tram in a Bremen station suburb on Friday evening, with police stating the attack was due to the women’s sexual orientation. It follows a wave of attacks from foreigners against LGBT people in Germany over the last years, including cases of murder.
The two women, aged 18 and 19, entered tram line 8 at the Haferkamp station and headed towards the city’s main station. When the two kissed, a 25-year-old Romanian man approached them and insulted them based on their sexuality.
An argument ensued between the man and the women, with the Romanian suddenly punching both women in the face.
🇩🇪‼️ "I will beat you till you die… Look at your pig skin."
A migrant makes sexist, racist, and anti-LGBT remarks against young women in the Berlin train system near the Tempelhof stop. pic.twitter.com/LuJZCcrTsT
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) November 19, 2024When the 18-year-old fell unconscious to the ground due to the blow, the Romanian man then kicked her in the stomach.
Officers patrolling the area noticed the incident and arrested the suspect, who was taken to the police station for processing.
The foreigner is now being investigated for grievous bodily harm. The State Security Service, which is responsible for hate crime cases, has taken over further investigations.
Both victims were transported to the hospital for outpatient treatment.
LGBT people have been the victims of attacks from migrants in Germany on many occasions. In one case, two lesbians in Berlin were seriously beaten by teenagers. In July of 2023, four men in the multicultural neighborhood of Kreuzberg beat two lesbians, used homophobic slurs, and fled the scene. In August 2023, in perhaps one of the most immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in Germany, Neukölln, a lesbian organization had its building burned down in an arson attack. In 2020, a Syrian migrant stabbed a gay man to death in Dresden in a targeted homophobic attack.
In 2022, a number of foreign men attacked a gay pride parade and set an LGBT flag on fire in Karlsruhe. Also in 2022, a rejected Chechen asylum seeker beat a transgender woman to death during an LGBT parade in Münster.
Middle Eastern and North African countries are known for their extreme anti-LGBT laws and incredible repression of the LGBT community. Cultural differences between Muslims and other non-European foreign national groups sometimes lead to social tensions and outright violence in multicultural European nations that take a more liberal approach to sexuality.
In 2023, a refugee center for 650 migrants opened opposite the world-famous Eastside Gallery gay bar.
The owner of the establishment has expressed major concerns about the safety of LGBT people and people partying in the area.
“The asylum home is located directly on a party mile where, in addition to young women, transgender people and many other people from the queer scene are out and about,” owner Carla Pahlau told Die Welt.
“Refugees with a Syrian, Afghan, or Turkish background come from an area where being gay is not accepted at all,” she added.
