At least two young gay men were seriously injured after being attacked by 30 villagers in Armenia, a region located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, in the South Caucasus. According to information from the LGBT website “Gay Star News”, the attack took place on August 3, around 20 pm local time. The activist for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Armenia, Hakobyan, founder of the Rainbow Armenia Initiative, reported that he was at his home drinking in the company of some friends, when they knocked on the door, wanting to speak to him. Upon refusing entry to the “visitor”, the man simply entered his home and began threatening everyone in the room. “He started swearing at us and making threats. We decided to leave the place to escape and for the safety of the house because he said that other villagers were coming to lynch us”, said the activist, in a statement to the press. Hakobyan also said that, after returning to the house, there were around 30 people waiting for him and his friends, shouting homophobia and stating that “homosexuals cannot live here”. According to the activist, one of the attackers is the former mayor of the village, Hakob Arshakyan. In addition to the homophobic bias, he suspects that the attack was politically motivated, because his father had filed a corruption complaint against the former mayor.
