ATTACK AGAINST LESBIANS ON THE STREET

Thursday, 04 August 2005 11:08

(E-mail sent on May 7th, 1995 to the mailing list “zamir” – antiwar list of activists Belgrade – Zagreb – Sarajevo – Zenica)

Description of the attack against four lesbians in Belgrade on May 5th, 1995

Maja, Lepa, Jelena, and Liljana have, after the meeting of Labris – lesbian section of Arcadia (Gay and Lesbian Lobby), started to write lesbian graffiti in Dorcol in an old street that used to be called “7 juli”.

During the action, young and elegantly dressed gentlemen approached us and yelled at us to get out of there. He grabbed spray from one of us and yelled at me: “I know you from the University. You’re that lesbian.” Then he went down the street, and we continued up the street.

After a while we separated and I started home.The same guy in raincoat appeared in front of me with another two young men, and one of them had a hockey stick. I have realized that they came out on purpose to look for us. The one in a raincoat grabbed my blouse and said: “I know who you are… filthy lesbian and leader of feminists. You are making Dorcol dirty.” He went on: “Get out of Dorcol.” Two guys stood quietly behind him. I asked him: “Who are you?” He said: “Don’t you say a word”, and he pushed me against the wall and held me like that for a while. Then he said that he could push me into a building’s entrance and kill me, and nobody would know about it. Beside me there was an old perfume shop, which was closed, and the building’s entrance. People were passing by but no one reacted. I tried to take a whistle that I was carrying around my neck but he grabbed it before me and tore it out. Then I told him to let me pass, and he ordered me to go to opposite direction from where I was going, and called out: “Go to the mosque, that’s where you belong.” (The only Islam mosque in Belgrade was around the corner.)I had to go in direction where I was ordered to, and three of them followed me.

At the next corner I found rest of the company, which was writing graffiti. They were preparing to go home. I told them what happened. Three of them stood in front of us and the same one attacked me again with words full of cold hatred and aggressive expressions, while his voice was full of emotional charge: “This is your gang. You are making us filthy with your lesbian graffiti.”

Then he grabbed my glasses, broke them in half and threw them on the street. He did the same thing with Jelena’s glasses. Jelena cursed him and he hit her. She kicked him, and after that he hit her strongly on the face, and then he kicked her, threw her on the ground and kept kicking her. When she got up, he took her spray and started to spray other women on their hair. Two young men who were accompanying him just supported him. In the end, he said to Jelena: “You are young. Why don’t you go to school instead of joining lesbian gang?”

It was only then did they decide to go away. We left as well. It was 11.30 pm and there were still people on the streets of center of the city.

Commentary: This was the first time I looked in the eyes of a man who was ready to kill me for who I was, and I don't even know who he is. It was obvious that he was trained to kill, that he and the other two were members of a gang. We still don't know which gang. They were probably followers of a religious fanaticism, and they appointed them selves for “moral cleaners” of the Dorcol, part of the town they live in. It was obvious that lesbian voice and lesbian bodies on “their land” create hatred. He thought that he’s insulting me by sending me to mosque, where I’ve been lot of times when I had been visiting several women refugees from Bosnia.

His emotions when he was addressing us were so strong, as if we killed someone from his family. I thought that besides lesbians, Muslims, Albanians, Roma and who knows who else, are on his “black list”. I wondered what is experience of the Muslims who are gathering in this neighborhood to go to the mosque next to this murderer?

By threatening me to kill me if I step on his land, he practically declared war to me.

I'm wondering how many people he already killed in wars in Croatia and Bosnia? How many women did he rape? What he ethnically cleansed? What will be the next step in the war against me, against lesbians and gays in this city?