World-First Inquiry Into Gay Hate Crimes Expected To Uncover Corruption And Dark History Of NSW Murders
After recommendations from a parliamentary hearing in 2021, a special commission of inquiry has been ordered to investigate dozens of suspected hate-crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in NSW between 1970 and 2010. Many of the victims were said to have experienced “lonely and terrifying” ends, reports ABC News.
WORLDWIDE FIRST OF ITS KIND
The special commission of inquiry seeks to uncover the truth behind many suspicious deaths and murders that have gone unsolved for decades. The victims of these crimes were all members of the LGBTQIA+ community and their cases are being, once more, addressed in the hope of unearthing the reasons behind them, finding explanations for the lack of arrests, and offering closure to the loved ones left behind, reports ABC News.
At the opening of the inquiry, Senior Counsel Assisting Peter Gray SC said, “All these lives, of every one of these people, mattered. They mattered to them, to their loved ones, and ultimately to all of us. And their deaths matter.”
For decades, the LGBTQIA+ community has lobbied authorities to take anti-gay and gender-bias murders into consideration during an investigation and to understand the pattern. This culminated in two reports in 2018, one from ACON and the other from NSW Police Strike Force Parrabell. Both reports identified crimes that, from their perspective, involved anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination.
According to ABC News, ACON CEO Nicolas Parkhill believes that in tandem with gay and transgender violence, AIDS panic and deeply-rooted government complicity were factors in the number of unsolved cases.
“We also saw that homophobia and transphobia sort of influencing governments and government services, and the tolerance for homophobia was really high,” says Parkhill. “We’re talking about murder, we’re talking about people being thrown off cliffs, we’re talking about people being bashed in parks to death by not just one or two people, but by groups of people.”
The special commission of inquiry is hearing testimony from the first set of witnesses today, November 21, in its second public hearing and will aim to bring light to truth and provide much-needed insight into these lonely and terrifying deaths.
