Syrian origin 31-year-old Gabriel Chabo claims that he was severely beaten by a group of Syrian migrants in the Swedish town of Södertälje after the men claimed that he was homosexual.
Mr Chabo was walking around the town on Friday afternoon with his brother when he was approached by several men he was unfamiliar with. The men, who he claims were lSyrian migrants, started getting aggressive with Chabo calling him homophobic insults and ultimately beating him with weapons and slamming his head repeatedly into a car door Expressen reports.
According to Chabo, when the men approached him they said, “if you are going to stay in Sodertalje, you pay money because you are gay.” Chabo said that he responded to them claiming that he was straight and telling the group to leave him alone.
Chabo said the likely reason for the attack was his open stance on supporting gay rights. He said the incident is not the first time he has had trouble saying that the beauty salon which he owns has been subject to vandalism in the past and also mentioned highly aggressive social media posts earlier in 2017.
Now unable to sleep without medication Chabo said he felt lucky to be alive after the attack. “I just thought that I did not want to die. I saw my life pass by in a second,” he said, “My nose is completely skewed. I can not see myself in the mirror, I do not feel good at all.”
As a Syrian origin man himself, Mr Chabo recognised the words spoken by the attackers in Arabic, Syriac and Swedish. Local police officer Peter Lindberg has said that there have been no suspects identified in the case so far.
The attack is one of a number of recent violent attacks on homosexuals by migrants. In Germany earlier this week a Serbian gay asylum seeker couple was viciously beaten in the asylum home where they were living. One of the men was so badly injured that he had to be hospitalised.
Many migrants during the course of the migrant crisis have shown deep hostility to homosexuality. The problem has become so endemic that many gay rights campaigners advocate for separate asylum accommodation for homosexuals to prevent violent incidents from happening.
The hostility to homosexuality is also present in migrant-heavy suburbs like those in Sweden where gay pride parades rarely occur. In 2015 Swedish left-wing politicians and others were shocked and dismayed when the only group willing to support a pride march through the notorious Stockholm suburbs of Husby and Tensta were the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats.