A widely known Georgian transgender girl was stabbed to loss of life in her condominium on Wednesday, authorities stated, in a “premeditated” assault that got here amid criticism of a authorities crackdown on LGBTQ rights.
The Caucasus nation’s ruling Georgian Dream get together has superior a “household values” invoice that has been in comparison with Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” legislation and criticised by the European Union and rights teams as stigmatising LGBTQ folks.
Actress, influencer and mannequin Kesaria Abramidze was killed in a knife assault on Wednesday — the day after the invoice handed its third and last studying — the inside ministry stated Thursday.
Abramidze, 37, was the primary particular person in Georgia to publicly come out as transgender. She represented the nation on the Miss Trans Star Worldwide contest in 2018 and had greater than 500,000 followers on Instagram.
The inside ministry stated she suffered “a number of stab wounds” and that it was investigating a “premeditated homicide dedicated with specific cruelty and aggravating circumstances on gender grounds.”
Police have arrested a suspect, recognized by Georgian media as Abramidze’s boyfriend.
The homicide has shocked components of the Black Sea nation, which has been rocked by main protests and political tensions for months.
Equality Motion, an LGBTQ rights organisation in Georgia, condemned the homicide in a publish on social media platform X.
“It is a wake-up name for Georgia. We should finish intolerance and shield the lives of our group,” it stated.
– ‘Horrific homicide’ –
Critics, together with the EU, have accused Georgian Dream of pushing an anti-Western, anti-liberal agenda forward of essential elections subsequent month.
Professional-EU President Salome Zurabishvili — at loggerheads with the federal government — condemned the “horrific homicide” in a Fb publish, saying “the tragedy should awaken Georgian society.”
Abramidze herself had beforehand criticised the federal government’s method to home violence and girls’s rights.
In April she stated she was pressured to briefly flee overseas, fearing for her life after assaults from a former associate.
“No to the femicide that has develop into so frequent in our nation!” she stated.
Georgia’s personal rights ombudsman stated in 2022 that “LGBT+ folks face persistent discrimination and violence in all spheres of life.”
The most recent measures, which should be signed into legislation by Zurabishvili or the parliament’s speaker, “concern proscribing, in instructional establishments and TV broadcasts, the propaganda of same-sex relationships and incest.”
Rights teams have criticised the wording for placing gay relations on a par with incest.
It additionally bans gender transition, and adoptions by homosexual and transgender folks, and nullifies same-sex marriages carried out overseas.
Brussels has stated the invoice “undermines basic rights of Georgians and dangers additional stigmatisation and discrimination of a part of the inhabitants.”
AFP
