What started as a pleasant evening ended in a nightmare for Finn (19) and Stijn (23) from Breda on Wednesday. The couple was walking arm in arm through Park Valkenberg after a Pride Bingo in the center, when a man chased them and called them ‘cancer gays’. The couple fled and Stijn fell. He was left with abrasions, a torn shirt and a lost flip flop. “We haven’t been able to sleep all night.”
The two are still upset the day after the incident. Especially since they were still trying to calm things down by letting go of each other. “Actually, that’s too crazy for words,” says Stijn.
The boys say that they will go to a together on Wednesday evening Silent Music bingo which was all about the Pride month. They were walking through Park Valkenberg, chatting happily, when they heard someone calling.
“We saw a man walking towards us.”
“It was still light and there were quite a lot of people. We felt comfortable and Stijn had an arm around me,” says Finn. “Suddenly someone shouted: ‘Walk normally!’ I thought: that is not intended for us. But when we looked back, we saw a man coming towards us.”
To avoid a conflict situation, the couple walked on and let go of each other. Stijn: “But that man kept on cursing: ‘Kanker gay! Kanker zemmel!’ Then I said: we are walking normally now, aren’t we? Is that okay for you? In fact, the world is completely upside down.”
When the boys ran away, the man continued to chase them. “I was running in slippers and one of them fell out,” says Stijn. “I fell hard and now have an abrasion on my leg, elbow and arm. My blouse is also torn.”
“Actually nobody did anything.”
The couple could not immediately count on help. “Finn picked up the slipper and then the man grabbed Finn’s elbow. That was very intimidating. The man eventually threw the slipper into the Singel. I then started shouting very loudly: ‘Call the police! Call 112!’ It was very busy, but nobody actually did anything.”
Once they fled to a nearby café, two women approached Finn and Stijn, who called the police. “They were too afraid to do anything at the moment,” says Finn. Eventually, the police arrested the perpetrator, a 22-year-old man from Rotterdam. He spent the night in jail and must appear in court soon. Stijn and Finn have filed a report.
The chase has a major impact on the boys. “We are having a hard time and are shocked,” says Finn. “We haven’t slept all night and talk all the time about what happened.”
“We can’t get anything out of our hands.”
The boys are not only busy at night. “We can’t get anything out of our hands now,” says Stijn. As a result, he missed an exam on Thursday. Finn has trouble completing his propaedeutic year of nursing because of the chase.
“Fortunately we have a lot of support from friends and family. But unfortunately something like this happens more often,” says Stijn. “When we walk together. Hand in hand, for example, some people yell at us.”
Normally, the men ignore name calling to avoid conflict. “That is actually very strange, of course. Usually it works. The fact that that man kept going now touched us enormously.”