By Lucas Gutiérrez. Fernando Adrián Albornoz, 34, is an LGBTQ+ activist. On Monday, as he arrived home in a building in the Barrio Norte neighborhood of Buenos Aires, he was attacked by a neighbor: he pushed him against the elevator mirror and said, “I don’t want to see any faggots or queers in my building. If I see you here again, I’ll kill you.” It was just after 8 p.m. when Albornoz arrived home. He was listening to music with headphones, approached the first elevator on the ground floor—as usual—and as he stepped inside, he was pushed from behind against the mirror. “I didn’t know if it was a thief or someone from there. He told me he didn’t want to see any faggots or queers in his building and that if he saw me again, he’d kill me. He said that, let go of me, and left,” the young man, who began to scream, told Presentes. The elevator was stuck on the ground floor because the door jammed: “If I had gone up with him, I don’t know how this would have ended.” Hearing the screams, the building manager came to Fernando’s aid and told him that the assailant, whom he had never seen before because he had only lived there for a few months, was a neighbor in the building.

“I’m afraid he’s free.”

Albornoz is a trainer on problematic substance use with a sexual diversity perspective at the Secretariat of Comprehensive Drug Policies (SEDRONAR) and an activist with Zona FALGBT. When he went to police station number 19 in the city to file a report, he was told that his attacker already had more than ten complaints filed against him by neighbors. That's how he learned about a WhatsApp group for the victims. “I'm scared because this person is free. This morning he walked right past me laughing his head off. At some point, there won't be any police protection, and then what happens? Because he already knows I reported him,” he told Presentes. The young man also mentioned that the building's security cameras aren't working properly and didn't record the incident.

Discrimination and death threats based on sexual orientation

Due to the number of complaints, the court decided to place a police detail at the building. “When the police commissioner called the judge to discuss how to proceed given the large number of cases, the secretary asked that I be questioned about whether I was actually gay or if I had used those words as an insult,” explained Fernando, still surprised by the commissioner's question: “Are you a faggot and a queer?” He says that, after that, the officer who took his statement “was more respectful”: “I replied that I am gay so that it would be on record that they weren't insults. That it was an act of discrimination and a death threat based on sexual orientation,” he continues: “This wasn't random.” The complaint was assigned to Criminal and Correctional Court No. 48. On Tuesday, Albornoz appeared at the LGBT Advocacy Office of the City of Buenos Aires. There, he was received by Flavia Massenzio, coordinator of that organization, and María Rachid, head of the Institute Against Discrimination of the Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires and general secretary of FALGBT; and he was also able to file the corresponding complaints. “We are in communication with the General Directorate of Attention and Assistance to Victims so that they can inform us what security measures they will take to guarantee that the City Police do not abandon their post,” Rachid explained to Presentes. She emphasized that they are also requesting a meeting with the prosecutor and the judge to discuss what legal measures will be taken: “If there are no concrete responses, the LGBT Ombudsman's Office will file a lawsuit and will also formally demand answers from the building's management.” The attack occurred days after the release of the report from the National Observatory of LGBT Hate Crimes, which, among other things, reports that a hate crime was reported every three days in Argentina during 2017: “Cases of violence and attacks have increased dramatically,” the official noted.  ]]>