Man who assaulted lesbian couple in Georgia released on bail

Man accused of assaulting lesbian couple in Tbilisi released on bail

A man accused of assaulting a lesbian couple in Tbilisi in the presence of their young child was released on bail of 3,000 lari [approximately $1,000] on April 23.

One of the victims is an employee of the Tbilisi Pride organization and she claims that it was her affiliation with the organization fact that provoked the attack; one of the victims also believes that the court’s riling was unfair.

Member of the supervisory board of the organization, Nino Bolkvadze, told reporters that the attack took place on April 20 in the courtyard of an apartment building where the couple lives.

One of the neighbors, a 35-year-old man, began verbally insulting them and demanding that they get out of the building and stop parking their car there. The man was allegedly inebriated.

“The attacker spat at them, continued homophobic insults, then took a jackknife out of his pocket, unrolled it, and threatened the couple. Other neighbors shouted at him to stop, but no one intervened to help the women”, Tbilisi Pride said in its statement.

Then the women managed to call the police, and the attacker was arrested. He was charged under Article 150 (assault), Article 151 (threats) and Article 284 (unauthorized access to a computer system).

“It is incredibly unjust not to treat this case as a hate crime. The man was threatening the couple with a knife right in front of their child – and he was released on bail to stay in the same place where his victims live”, psychologist Maia Tsiramua said in her Facebook post.

• ‘You never know, whether you’ll return home alive or not’
• Living surrounded by hate. LGBT individuals and their parents in Georgia

One of the latest studies carried out by the Georgian sociological company CRRC revealed a very low level of tolerance in Georgia towards LGBT individuals.

70% of the respondents would not like to have any relationship with homosexuals – neither as friends nor as neighbors or colleagues, and only 22% answered in the affirmative.

In this survey, respondents were asked to name groups that they would not like as neighbors. After drug addicts (67%) and criminals (67%), respondents named LGBT individuals (54%).

The most tolerant of the survey respondents were people with disabilities – only 1% of them said they would not want such people to live in their neighborhood.