Hate incidents impacted the majority of Pride events organised in Finland last year, according to a report published on Friday by Seta, Finland's main association for gender and sexual minority rights.
Seta investigated hate incidents by sending a questionnaire to the organisers of Pride events. Of the 45 events that responded to the survey, 30 had experienced hate incidents and harassment or threats of such acts.
Hate incidents include but are not limited to vandalism, threats and harassment. For example, some of the hate incidents included the destruction of rainbow Pride flags and online threats of violence to participants.
"These are not isolated incidents, rather the increase in harassment at Pride events plays into trends observed worldwide. Although Pride events are increasingly the target of hate incidents and rainbow flags and other symbols are being vandalised, acceptance is also slowly, but steadily, increasing," said Jana Turk, a project expert at Seta.
A total of 52 Pride events were organised last year around Finland.
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