More than 500 complaints of discrimination during WorldPride

More than 500 reports of discrimination were received by a volunteer hotline during last week’s WorldPride event in Amsterdam.

The online portal RITA (Report It Always), set up for members of the LGBTQI+ community, said reports were still coming in following the two-week event, which included the city’s annual Pride canal parade on August 1.

Altogether 520 discriminatory incidents were reported, including 74 last weekend as the festivities drew to a close.

This year RITA set up 35 ”safe spaces” around the city, including hotels, the Stedelijk Museum and the Nieuwe Kerk, where people could seek shelter from discrimination and report incidents in confidence.

Co-founder Jerrald Justin said the figures showed there discrimination remained a systematic problem in the Netherlands despite Amsterdam’s reputation as a gay-friendly city.

“The most common incidents are people being verbally abused in public spaces or on public transport,” he told Dutch News. “That’s always how it always begins.

“Sometimes they’re followed or harassed and if they react to that it can lead to physical violence. But we tell them to report assaults to the police, so those incidents aren’t counted in our figures.”

The figures are hard to compare with previous years because WorldPride was a bigger event than the one-day canal parade, attracting more visitors, while RITA’s publicity campaign also led to more reports.

Justin pointed out that every incident represented a person whose day had been marred by discrimination.

“All of us have faced discrimination and we’ve developed pretty thick skins, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us,” he said.

“Pride is more than just a party: it’s a protest to celebrate the queer community despite everything that’s been done for hundreds of years to keep us down, so it hurts when people are shouted and sworn at.

“Every time someone is harassed is one incident too many. It breaks my heart when I hear someone say they don’t want to go to Pride because they won’t run the risk.”

RITA is working with the justice ministry to extend its network across the Netherlands, Justin said.

“Physically we’re only in Amsterdam at the moment, but our campaign is for the whole country,” he said. “We’re aiming in the next three years to go to every province to gather the data and see what people need there.”