Chile’s president signed an anti-discrimination bill into law on Thursday, motivated in large part by the brutal killing of a gay man who was found beaten to death with swastikas carved into his body.
The law was approved in May after being stuck in Congress for seven years. President Sebastián Piñera had urged lawmakers to speed its approval after the slaying of Daniel Zamudio in March set off a national debate about hate crimes in Chile.
Zamudio was found beaten and mutilated in a city park. The U.N. human rights office had urged Chile to pass legislation against hate crimes and discrimination after the killing.
Without a doubt, Daniel’s death was painful, but it was not in vain.
– Chilean President Sebastián Piñera
Many people in Chile refer to the new measure, which enables people to file anti-discrimination lawsuits and adds hate-crime sentences for violent crimes, as the Zamudio law.
“Without a doubt, Daniel’s death was painful but it was not in vain,” Piñera said at a press conference joined by Zamudio’s parents. “His passing not only unified wills to finally approve this anti-discrimination law but it also helped us examine our conscience and ask ourselves: have we ever discriminated someone? … After his death we’ll think twice, thrice or four times before we fall prey to that behavior.”
Four suspects, some with criminal records for attacks on homosexuals, have been jailed in Zamudio’s killing. Prosecutors are seeking murder charges.
-full report at Fox News Latino.
The latest place where reconciliation between the Catholic hierarchy and the LGBT community is desperately needed is Valencia, Spain, where the two groups are coming to legal loggerheads over negative comments the cardinal of that city made about LGBT people and family.
