Damage to rainbow f lags a ‘hate crime’
The slashing of Pride Whanganui’s rainbow flags has been “heartbreaking” as the city gears up for Pride Week, the city’s pride chairperson says.
Christina Emery said seeing the flags sliced, or being called a homo or a faggot was water off a duck’s back for her, but it was heartbreaking to see how the queer community has reacted to the incident.
“The rhetoric was ‘Oh, we’re not safe, this is why I hate my hometown’, and it breaks my heart because we are a safe place, we don’t let this small minority win.”
Nine rainbow flags have been slashed to ribbons in Whanganui over the past week just days before Pride Week begins.
When it was one or two, Emery said she could look past it, but it had become a targeted attack that needed to be addressed due to the increase in targeted hate she had seen since the protests and counter-protests in regard to anti-transgender activist Posie Parker in 2023.
“Before it was see a rainbow, hate a rainbow ... there was no real distinction about who they hate, it was just everyone in the rainbow community,” she said.
“Since Posie Parker there’s definitely been a lot more hate towards the trans community, but it’s revved up the hate towards the gay community too.”
At least two young men in a red vehicle were seen slashing the flags with a large knife they had secured to a long stick on Anzac Parade, Emery said. “I call it a hate crime because it is. It was a premeditated, intentional slicing down of rainbow flags.”
Whanganui Pride purchased 44 flags for $96 each – with the help of funding – which flew for the first time during Pride Week in 2022.
Only one was ripped from its pole then, but this year’s events had forced her to consider stronger security for the events lined up in the coming week. “It’s no coincidence ... and what do I have to fall back on? Vandalism? That’s going to be a slap on the wrist.”
Emery said the incident was targeted, and it was ramping up across the nation.
Tauranga’s Rainbow Youth building was destroyed in a suspicious fire in 2022, and in Christchurch a group of youths were before the court for allegedly luring gay men to locations to attack them using fake dating profiles.
In the first 31 days of 2024, there were 462 reports of hate-motivated crimes to police, with statistics showing an increase in incidents being reported.
In 2021, 3208 were reported, jumping to 4178 in 2022, and 4711 in 2023, according to police statistics.