Anti-LGBT Violence Escalates in Prishtina; Kosovo Officials Condemns Attacks
On the heels of an interrupted  Kosovo 2.0 magazine launch on Friday night, violence escalated, culminating in attacks on Libertas, a LGBT NGO’s offices and staff membersÂ
On Sunday night in the country’s capital city, Prishtina, a group of about seven men attacked members of Kosovo’s LGBT community.  The attack occurred at the office of Libertas, a LGBT organization that opened this summer. Twenty or so employees and friends of Libertas had gathered at the office for a party. According to a source who was there, two people briefly left the party to go to a grocery store nearby. As they returned, several men beat and injured one of the pair, a young woman. The second partygoer ran into the office to warn the others, at which point the group of men attempted to follow him inside. Some of the partygoers tried to prevent them from entering, but the men still managed to throw some sort of gas that spread through the office.
A press release from Libertas and another LGBT organization, Qesh, said the police were contacted and came to the scene, where they evacuated the partygoers. The young woman who had been beaten was taken to a police station to issue a statement. The police, reportedly, said they would pursue charges against the attackers, though the men have not been identified. A source who is acquainted with Libertas said he knew of no arrests that may have been made since last night.
Libertas and Qesh said in a statement today, “Libertas was a safe place for our community members where could express themselves, be themselves and feel secure. That is not the case today.â€
The attack was the third of the weekend, following two incidents on Friday night during which the magazine Kosovo 2.0 was targeted. The magazine was hosting two launch events for its “sexuality†issue, which includes several articles on LGBT life in the Balkans, including one written by this journalist. In the first incident, which occurred in the evening, a group of men with clubs destroyed equipment the magazine was using for a reading and screening event. They also beat an employee. Later in the night, roughly 100 protesters gathered at the site of a party the magazine was hosting, forcing some attendees to flee and others to be escorted away by the police. These attacks came on the heels of inflammatory, anti-LGBT rhetoric, as well as condemnation of Kosovo 2.0, by members of Plisat, a football fan group, and imams in some Prishtina mosques.
Kosovo’s Ministry of European Integration prepared a statement after Friday night’s incidents saying, “[W]e encourage more work on stopping the discrimination on basis of ethnicity, religion, [and] sexual orientation,†and pledging financial support for protecting human rights in 2013. One Kosovar government official has said an investigation into the weekend’s events is “ongoing.†The U.S. Embassy in Prishtina, meanwhile, issued a statement condemning the attacks on Friday and Sunday; it stated, “[T]he rights of LGBT community members are human rights like any other, and must be protected and never forgotten or ignored. Regardless of one’s personal opinions or beliefs, no practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us.†The European Centre for Minority Issues- Kosovo, as well as the editors of Kosovo 2.0, have also released statements.
Violence against LGBT people or those perceived to be part of the community are nothing new in Kosovo. Â About a year ago, a local club called “Pure Pure” was forced to shut down and reopen under a new name after it was targeted for hosting parties for the LGBT community. One employee, who is gay, had to leave the country as a result.
Â
Seyward Darby worked in Kosovo l for a local human rights group on LGBT and freedom of expression projects with support from the Coca-Cola World Fund and Kirby-Simon Fellowship Program at Yale University. Her organization receives some funding from the U.S. government.Â
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President Donald Trump concluded his executive time Friday morning with a statement announcing he would end the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and laid out his requirements for a deal with Iran, before declaring, “I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination.”
After a two-hour meeting with his advisors, Trump left without making a decision.
“It was not clear why Mr. Trump did not reach a decision,” The New York Times reports.
“In recent days, the sides have exchanged fire, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened a return to full-scale war,” the Times added.
Among Trump’s demands were that the Strait be reopened “immediately,” with no tolls imposed on traffic, and all water mines removed — although he noted, “we have removed, through detonation, numerous such mines with our great underwater mine sweepers.”
“Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say hello to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President,” he wrote. Trump added: “No money will be exchanged, until further notice.”
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Were an agreement to be reached, the Times noted, “it could give Mr. Trump an off-ramp from a war that has driven up oil prices and grown deeply unpopular at home. It could also eventually allow Iran to regain access to frozen overseas assets and provide a route for Tehran to get billions of dollars of oil revenue flowing again.”
Even if the Strait reopened immediately, experts warn, replacing the lost oil could take months.
“The spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said in a telephone interview with Iranian state media on Friday that current negotiations were limited in scope and did not include ‘the nuclear issue,'” the Times reports. Trump did specifically state that “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb.”
He also mentioned “nuclear dust,” writing that it “is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 Bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it.”
The president said that it “will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and destroyed.”
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Image via Reuters
A federal judge has ordered that President Donald Trump cannot rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, nor may he close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” the judge wrote, CNBC reports. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Just weeks after he was sworn into office, Trump removed members of the board of the Kennedy Center and replaced them with allies and administration officials, including Richard Grenell, Pam Bondi, and Susie Wiles. The new board then voted for Trump to become chairman of the Kennedy Center.
In December, after the White House announced that the board of the Kennedy Center — the official, “living memorial” to the late president — had voted to rename the iconic cultural institution the Trump-Kennedy Center, several members of the Kennedy family took the opportunity to denounce the move.
Maria Shriver, the former First Lady of California, wrote: “The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F Kennedy.”
She called the renaming “beyond comprehension,” “beyond wild,” “downright weird,” and “obsessive in a weird way,” while explaining that the Kennedy Center was named in honor of a man who was interested in the arts, culture, education, language, and history.
“Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial,” she said. “The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”
May 17 is President John F. Kennedy’s birthday, he was born in 1917.
This article has been updated.
Image via Reuters
The Villages in Florida is deep red Trump country — it’s called the “largest retirement community in the world,” where nearly seven out of 10 county residents voted for Trump in 2024. It’s roughly four hours to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort, and it’s not unusual to see Trump flags on the backs of residents’ golf carts.
Trump visited The Villages just a few weeks ago, where one resident told BBC News, “we’re as red as red gets.”
“The Village are very Republican and very Trumpster,” said another.
“Trump 2028!” declared another, waving his fist.
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Young scorches Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that he says “produced the highest deficit spending in history.”
Citing dystopian and totalitarian works by George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Ayn Rand, he writes: “This is not renewal but regression. America has been dragged into an alternate 1984, where responsibility collapses and chaos parades as strength. The political temperature has risen to 451. The pigs now rule the farm.”
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Image via Shutterstock
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