Córdoba: Pride flag raised by the Municipality and LGBTIQ+ groups burned

The flag, raised in Sarmiento Park in Córdoba Capital, had already been vandalized on International Pride Day.

Flag of Diversity – Municipality of Córdoba

November 20, 2020

By Alexis Oliva – from Córdoba

Photo: Municipality of Córdoba

On International Transgender-Travesti Day of Remembrance and one day before the 12th Virtual Pride March, the diversity flag flying on a flagpole in Sarmiento Park in Córdoba capital was burned by as yet unknown aggressors.

Today at 6:30 a.m., municipal employees working in the park reported that at least two people were setting fire to the rainbow flag with a lit stick. They were unable to identify them because, upon being discovered, the individuals fled, leaving the flag about 50 percent burned.

The Director of Gender Affairs, Mónica Ferreyra, and her counterpart in Human Rights for the municipality, Guillermo Ruibal, filed a criminal complaint in the provincial courts hours later, and in the afternoon they replaced the damaged flag with a new one. “These events should give us pause for thought and also mean that we must continue working on the inclusive policies and respect for diversity that we have been developing at the Municipality,” Ferreyra told Presentes .

This is not the first time this flag has been targeted by intolerance. When it was raised by the Municipality of Córdoba and LGBTQ+ groups on the eve of June 28 – International LGBTQ+ Pride Day – anti-rights activists took it down, and the following day they destroyed the commemorative plaque and attacked the activists from diversity groups who were supporting its restoration. On that occasion, several assailants were identified and charged.

The Córdoba branch of the National Institute Against Discrimination (INADI) expressed its “deepest rejection of the repeated expressions of hatred towards the LGBTQI+ community. The burning of the pride flag raised in Sarmiento Park in the city of Córdoba, far from being an isolated incident, reflects the intention of a minority group in our society to prevent the full exercise of democracy and life in society.”

“We strongly condemn this new hate attack on our community emblem and demand that public authorities take action once and for all,” the Dissident Action Platform said in a statement.

Furthermore, they called for “not falling into the provocations of the haters and responding collectively with great responsibility” and called for tomorrow, Saturday the 21st, to hang pride flags in windows and balconies and to demonstrate on social networks “with photos of our flags and photos of ourselves with signs with the slogan 'Pride is…' and completing with what pride means to each of us.”

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