Over 100 anonymous complaints have been made.
Incredible complaints about gay “conversion therapies.” in Cyprus Deutsche Welle highlights.
There have been more than 100 anonymous complaints, he emphasizes Stefanos Evaggelidis secretary of ACCEPT – LGBTI. According to the complaints, priests have suggested to the people they approach, in addition to prayer for repentance, consul, to watch sexual films to “forget” what they like, to take pills to have an erection and even exorcism.
“We have around 100 anonymous complaints on this issue. They start either from priests who, in their attempt to catechize the person who goes to them, may suggest anything from prayer for repentance to a consulate. To watch sex films containing two women to forget what they really like if they are gay men. Even offering them pills to drink so that they can have an erection and we even got to the point where we have a complaint about exorcism. That is, they tied the person to the chair and prayed for exorcism”says Mr. Evaggelidis, secretary of ACCEPT – LGBTI.
On DW camera, LGBTI person describes how he was approached by a priest for “conversion” and what he suggested to … solve the “problem”.
“The whole experience started when I was 16 years old, when a certain priest saw me at a family event, when we went to the shrine he asked me various questions. He was basically trying his best to get me to open up. He asked me various questions about sex that were very personal. He thought it was something that could be overcome because he had so many other cases that “had the same problem”, as he said, and with a lot of prayer and struggle they succeeded, started a family and now “they are happy” as he claims.
Watch the video:
On his part, Mr AKEL MP Giorgos Koukoumas calls for the criminalization of these practices.
“In Cyprus, these conversion treatments are carried out by health professionals, hormone therapies, psychotherapies, but also by priests through forced submission to catechism and so on. In the past period, very shocking testimonies have been heard about torture in and out of quotes to which LGBTQI people are subjected to change their sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression. So our initiative aims precisely to criminalize these practices”, says the AKEL MP.
View the news feed and get the latest news.
