22 May, Rotterdam: respect our existence or expect resistance: no LGBTQIA+ hatred in our city!
No room for the neo-Nazis of Voorpost and their lhbtqia+ hatred in Rotterdam!
On Saturday 22 May, the neo-Nazi organisation Voorpost wants to come to Rotterdam to spread their hatred of members from the lhbtqia+ community at the Eurovision Song Contest. This attempt to intimidate and threaten is completely unacceptable.
There may be the idea that the liberation of the lhbtqia+ community is now complete, but nothing is further from the truth. People who cannot or do not want to comply with heterosexual standards are still often discriminated against, excluded and beaten up. This is a structural problem, and in recent years hatred for trans people has increased sharply. So people still cannot simply be who they are. The Rotterdam Rainbow Coalition will not accept that Nazis come and attack a community that is already under fire, so we will organise a counter-protest on the spot.
Saturday, May 22nd
Starting 17:00 hours
Near Ahoy
Ahoyweg 10, Rotterdam
Facebook
Voorpost has a history of intimidating and violent actions against refugees, Muslims and left-wing activists, among others. It is a racist and anti-Semitic club with a thoroughly patriarchal world view in which there is no room for queer people, for anyone who counts themselves as a member of the lhbtqia+ community. Nazis not deserve to demonstrate anywhere, and certainly not in a city as diverse as Rotterdam, where half of the population is none-white.
The Eurovision Song Contest nowadays has a queer image and the Nazis don’t like that. The Rainbow Coalition wants to keep Voorpost away from the contest and its (queer) visitors, but it is not a supporter of the contest itself. The enormous sums dropped on it would have been better spent on culture by and for the tens of thousands of Rotterdammers who are now excluded from it because of poverty. In addition, it is a shame that countries that are guilty of large-scale ruthless repression are taking part in the contest, think of Israel and Belarus.
The Rotterdam Rainbow Coalition is named after the broad coalition that Black Panther leader Fred Hampton built in Chicago, which included people from all oppressed and exploited communities. This largely came to an end when he was murdered by the police at home on 4 December 1969. Of course, the lhbtqia+ community plays a major role in the current Rotterdam Rainbow Coalition.
We call on everyone to join the protest. We find it extremely important that all (and especially white and cis hetero) participants in the protest are very well aware that especially people from the lhbtqia+ community and non-white people are extra at risk during protests against nazis. We assume that everyone will stick to the agreements made on site in order to keep the protest as safe as possible for everyone. Of course, we also ask everyone to stick to the covid rules of one and a half metres and facemasks.
No room for hate against the lhbtqia+ community!
The Rotterdam Rainbow Coalition now consists of: KONTRA Rotterdam, Expreszo, AFA Rotterdam, BIJ1, Rotterdam BIJ1, Doorbraak, DWARS Rotterdam-Rijnmond, ROOD Rotterdam, Broodbuis and the Vrije Bond Rotterdam.
