PARIS — Three French men were sentenced in Paris on Tuesday for a 2013 attack on a gay man and his partner who were walking arm-in-arm.
K. Taieb and M. Abdel Malik, both 19, were sentenced to 2.5 years in jail, with 12 and 18 months suspended, for the attack on Wilfred de Bruijn, who was kicked in the face and beaten unconscious near his home early in central Paris on April 6, 2013, sustaining five fractures in his head and face, abrasions and a lost tooth.
His partner, who was also beaten, witnessed the attackers shouting “Hey, look they’re gays,” before they attacked.
A third man, 21-year-old T. Kide, witnessed the attack but did not help the victims was given a six-month suspended jail sentence.
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At the time of the attack, a photograph showing De Bruijn’s injuries went viral on social media, and was used as an emblem in a pro-gay rally to call attention to increased anti-gay violence in the region at a time when the French parliament was debating a same-sex marriage bill.
In a report last month, a French gay rights group said attacks against the LGBT community increased by 78 percent in France in 2013.
