ROME – After being attacked for kissing with his partner in the center of Rome, the young Nicaraguan Jean Pierre Moreno has become, a month later and “without looking for it”, a champion of LGBTQ + rights in Italy, where the processing of the law against prejudice towards these people remains stagnant in Parliament.
Moreno had been celebrating his 23rd birthday and was returning home on the night of February 26 with his boyfriend and a friend when a man “crossed the train tracks, risking his own life, just to achieve his goal”: to hit the couple, who had just kissed, relates the young man.
“On the other side of the platform (from the Roman Valle Aurelia station) there was a guy who began to tell us things, homophobic accusations. I ignored him, but he got more upset and began to be more aggressive,” explains Moreno, who, “for intuition “and foreshadowing that the man – already identified by the police – would become even more violent, he asked his friend to record the scene with his mobile.
Not a minute of that had passed and the aggressor, a 31-year-old Roman, had already crossed the train tracks to hit Moreno and her boyfriend.
Everything was recorded in a video that has gone viral in Italy thanks to its publication on March 22 – almost a month after the attack – on the page of the Gaynet association, of which Moreno is a member. The condemnation reactions were immediate.
Among the messages, some of important Italian political figures of all colors: from the leader of the far-right formation Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, to the deputy of the progressive Democratic Party Alessandro Zan, promoter of the law against homophobia who still awaits his final approval in Parliament.
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Moreno appreciates the support, but urges the politicians to carry out the provision: “I would tell Giorgia Meloni, like other characters, to introspect and vote on the law because it really is a guardianship for citizens.”
The Zan law was approved in the Chamber of Deputies with 265 votes in favor and 193 against on November 4. Since then, he has waited for the green light from the Senate.
The norm will entail, among other measures, the modification of the Penal Code to include the aggravating circumstance of discrimination based on sex, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, and also disability.
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“It has been more than 27 years that this bill has been delayed, and we cannot continue like this. Italy is one of the founding countries of the European Union, which now declares itself a safe space for LGTBI people. But it is not It is not because this law does not exist, “argues Moreno.
His wish is that future generations know that attacks like the one he suffered are “a crime” that must be punished to stop “normalizing this type of action against LGBTQ + people.
Although his story has relaunched the request for the Zan law in Italy and has prompted the call for a protest today in Rome under the slogan “Bacio chi me pare” (‘Kiss whoever I like’), Moreno does not consider himself an activist, but “one more citizen, involved with organizations and associations” for Human Rights.
Their struggle has made them an icon for homoparental families.
The most important for him is SOSNicaragua-Europe, from which opponents of the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo “make the situation in Nicaragua visible to have more effect on international entities,” he explains.
Moreno, who defines himself as “a refugee in Italy”, says that he fled his country three years ago, in 2018, when the socio-political crisis broke out that, according to the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective, has claimed the lives of 328 people and has caused more than 5,000 injuries.
After having also experienced “moments of micro-racism”, Moreno is “proud” of having become, albeit by chance, a new speaker for the rights of the LGTBQ + collective in Italy.
Mexico City was flooded with kisses between people of the same sex to protest this Friday against the discrimination of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) group on the National Day of the Fight Against Homophobia, celebrated in 70 countries in addition to Mexico.
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