Thursday, September 11, 2008

Why so coy?

Awful report

Cops believe the 20-year-old had been walking to the gay-friendly George
and Dragon pub in Hackney Road with a woman when he was attacked at the junction of Boundary Street and Austin Street in Shoreditch onThursday.He was hounded by a group of around five teenage boys, hit over the head with a glass bottle then stabbed seven times in the back and chest. He underwent life-saving surgery at
Whitechapel’s Royal London Hospital on Friday morning.The stabbing is also being
linked to an assault in the same area 24 hours before in which a man and woman
were both attacked and were kicked and punched by a group of youths.Det Insp
Howard Way, of Tower Hamlets police, condemned the attack as “evil”, but
although it was being treated as a homophobic crime, he was keeping an open mind
about motive.

Three men have been arrested, but police refused to give any details about their backgrounds.

But why would that be? Surely not because the,
"attack was carried out by a group of Bengali lads. They had already had an argument with a group of guys who came out of the George and Dragon after goading them for being gay, then fired up by that 10 minutes later they charged at the victim attacking him ferociously. They are part of a known Bengali gang who have been causing trouble over the past few years, some of it homophobic. Recently a lesbian woman was attacked coming out of a local restaurant on Calvert Avenue. I myself have had stones thrown at me by them when walking home from the G&D.

It's not racist to acknowledge this fact – purely pragmatic. As a gay man living on the Boundary Estate where the attack took place I want to know who to be looking out for and be able to call the police helpline when a gang is looking threatening or up to no good. And that doesn’t preclude me from recognising that the vast majority of Bengali people are peace-loving and friendly, like those living in my block.

But we have to accept the fact that there is a growing extremist islamofascist strain of islam that is preaching hatred against gay and lesbian people and this is filtering down to the streets. Why is it wrong to condemn this? In precisely the way that we would condemn anti-Semitism, racism or homophobia from any other group".
Thanks to Laban Tall

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