TGEU Countries: Moldova 2. On 20 September 2014, members of the infamous fine in court and most likely did not pay it at all because the In this increasingly homo and transhopic climate in Mol- I was physically assaulted at the bus station right-wing extremist gang “Occupy Paedophilia” carried three-month period during which an offender is supposed dova, several cases of direct violence on the ground of by an unknown man in broad daylight out an attack on the GENDERDOC-M office, where to pay fines for administrative offences had passed. gender identity and expression have also been recorded because of my feminine looks. around 40 LGBT community members and organisation by GENDERDOC-M during ProTrans. I didn’t call the police because I had signed staff had gathered to go on a field trip. The eight assail- 3. On 11 October 2014, International Coming Out ants (some of them visibly minors) were wearing med- Day, and only two weeks after the attack on GENDER- For the record ical masks on their faces and threw eggs over the fence, DOC-M’s offices, eight members of “Occupy Paedo- 1. On 21 May 2015, the 22-year-old self-identified with the local population. I didn’t know this incident hitting several people, the courtyard and the walls of the philia”, including their leader, showed up at the collec- androgynous person from Ukraine was physically as- wouldn’t qualify as a violation of that condition. building. One of the assailants shouted “No to fags!” The tive reading of LGBT people’s personal stories, held at a saulted by an unknown man on the way to a university police fined the gang leader MDL 1,000 (EUR 50) for Chișinău theatre. They intruded into the room after the in Chișinău, where he attends evening Romanian-lan- hooliganism (an administrative offence). No charges for event had begun. Although they did not manifest any guage courses. Standing at the bus station waiting for bias-motivated violence were laid. Five minutes prior to violent behaviour, organisers had to suspend the activ- the bus, he felt someone pulling at the right shoulder of the attack, a group of eight young people, among whom ity due to a fear of violence. The gang members left the his shirt. He was forcefully turned around by a seeming- was the gang leader Stanislav Ghibadulin, were spot- venue and the area before the police arrived. Their unex- ly drunk man in his late 20s, who grabbed the chest of his ted open-faced in close proximity to the office by three pected visit was an act of pure intimidation, and every- shirt. The assailant was much taller and stronger than GENDERDOC-M employees. The latter immediately one in the room felt unsafe. After the extremists had left, the victim. He was shouting in Romanian, but the victim warned the people at the office about a possible assault the collective reading performance was resumed. could hardly understand him because he was unfamiliar a refugee-consent form at the Migration and Asylum by telephone, and they managed to enter organisation’s with the perpetrator’s dialect. The only words he under- premises safely. During the attack, GENDERDOC-M’s stood were “you are a fag” and “pederasty in our coun- director told others to push the alarm button and call try”. The assailant tore the cap off the victim’s head and the police. The assailants heard these indications and started to pull him to the side over the flowerbed. Male ran away. Police arrived shortly and made a report. passers-by did not react at all, while female passers-by Bureau stipulating that I would not enter into conflict C., 22-year-old androgynous asylum seeker from Ukraine tried to intervene. The assailant tried to punch victim in + 70 + GENDERDOC-M’s lawyer requested protection meas- the face, but the young man managed to avoid being hit ures for the organisation and its members, as well as con- and then broke free from the assailant and ran away. The stant police patrol of the street where the office is located. victim did not call the police, because he had previously She received no response from the police to either of the signed some papers at the Migration and Asylum Bu- requests. The organisation was only informed about the reau obliging him “not to enter into conflict with the lo- fact that Ghibadulin had been fined MDL 1000 (EUR 50) cal population”. The young asylum seeker had not been for the attack on the office. Thus, in spite of opening a crim- informed of his rights by the bureau, and especially the inal investigation into the homophobic hate crime, police right to not be subjected to violence by anyone, includ- simply fined the leader of the perpetrators. GENDER- ing representatives of the “local population”. It should DOC-M checked the national court database and found be noted that this incident occurred just four days after out that Ghibadulin had appealed the applicability of the the 3rd LGBT Pride March for Equality in Chișinău. + 71 +