Guardian Unlimited
Gays and lesbians under siege as violence and harassment soar in Northern Ireland
Campaigners say homophobia still seen as ‘respectable prejudice’ in province
Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Monday June 6, 2005
The Guardian
Brian McDermott seeks refuge in a cramped back room he calls his “prison cell”. With a bed, a garden chair and a portable television squeezed in, it is the only place in his flat in Derry’s Bogside where the 54-year-old feels safe. His front door has been boarded up and triple-locked after a makeshift bomb blew out the letterbox.
Mr McDermott has not left his flat after 2pm for 16 weeks, afraid he will be attacked for being gay.
His front window - previously pelted with eggs - has been shattered by a paint bomb. It was the seventh homophobic attack in two years since his nose was broken by a gang of men shouting “queer bastard” as he walked past Derry’s picturesque Guildhall.
As tourists on Northern Ireland’s Troubles tours arrive to admire the Bogside’s republican murals, they photograph Mr McDermott’s battered window. It probably seems quaint. But Free Derry Corner, a holy ground in the struggle for equal rights, was never supposed to symbolise the criminal homophobia that threatens to spiral out of control in the province.
“I don’t have any quality of life,” Mr McDermott said. “I only venture a short walk to buy a newspaper. I went to the theatre once, but got a taxi straight there and back. I feel like a prisoner. I can’t even face sitting in the backyard any more.”
In post-ceasefire Northern Ireland, where sectarian and racist attacks are rapidly rising, homophobic violence is the latest grim reality of a society where being different can get you killed.
There have been an estimated five homophobic murders in the past six years. In south Belfast a 31-year-old civil servant was stabbed and battered to death with a wheel-brace by two teenage boys out on what a judge called a “queer bashing expedition”. In the past year homophobic incidents reported to police have more than doubled to almost 200, including two attempted murders and five threats or conspiracy to murder. One man was stabbed and battered with a bedside locker and an iron in the bedroom of his home in Derry.
In a deeply conservative society, where the leader of the largest political party once led a Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign, homophobia is still seen as a “respectable and acceptable prejudice”, according to Belfast’s Institute for Conflict Research. Only 27% of gay, lesbian or bisexual people in Northern Ireland feel safe walking down the street at night.
In Derry, homophobic incidents have increased by 300% in the past year. It is now dubbed the “gay bashing capital” of Northern Ireland. Gay men tell of violent attacks in the street and death threats sent to their homes in the form of mass cards. One gay man on a Derry housing estate bolts two planks of wood across his front door every night for protection. Another couple have rigged up CCTV around their house but still take turns to sleep.
A gay man recently needed stitches after an attacker leapt at him and bit a chunk out of his face as he stood outside a chip shop in the Waterside area of the city. Cars are have been daubed with slogans, windows shattered and excrement smeared on front doors. A voluntary worker was driven out of his way by a taxi driver calling him a “queer, faggot bastard”. Those on the receiving end have ranged from gay teenagers to pensioners.
One reason for the rise in the number of recorded homophobic attacks is the gay community’s growing confidence in reporting abuse to the police. Community groups and police are working to increase this. But campaigners also say attacks are becoming more common and brutal.
Ferocity
“The true picture is much worse than the figures lead you to believe,” said David McCartney of Derry’s Rainbow Project. “There has been an increase in the ferocity of attacks. People have been trailed after leaving a gay club and attacked in the street.
“There is no discernible pattern to suggest it is organised. It’s a reflection of homophobia in society.”
He said many victims were leaving Northern Ireland. “It’s a kind of ethnic cleansing.”
In south Belfast, a lesbian couple had to leave their home after repeated harassment and intimidation.
Others have said paramilitary groups were behind the threats they received.
One man was stabbed with a screwdriver outside a gay club in Belfast in an attack which symbolised the confused nature of much of the province’s hate crime. With his assailant shouting, “Die you Fenian bastard,” the gay Protestant victim was not sure whether to report the attack as sectarian or homophobic.
The gay scene is growing. Belfast’s Gay Pride march is in its 15th year and every summer it files politely past the religious protesters with their megaphones.
But parliament’s Northern Ireland affairs committee has warned that if the government and police do not improve their handling of the “rising tide” of homophobic, racist and sectarian attacks in the province, “hate crime may spiral out of control with extremely serious consequences for the pace of social improvement”.
Police clearance rates for homophobic crime stand at 22.5%, which the committee of MPs found “unacceptably low”.
James Knox of Belfast’s Coalition on Sexual Orientation said the violence was a product of the post-Troubles society. “The Catholic-Protestant situation is starting to minimise and people are just looking for another excuse to have a go at somebody else,” he said. “Ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians are easy targets.”
'So venceremos, beidh bua againn eigin lá eigin. Sealadaigh abú.'
--Bobby Sands