BERLIN, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Homo, trans and bisexual Germans are increasingly exposed to crimes on account of their sexual orientation, a report by the Federal Interior Ministry released on Wednesday shows.
The official statement was a response to a query by Green party politician and LGBT rights activist Volker Beck. It revealed that 130 politically-motivated crimes in the category of sexual orientation have been committed between January and the end of July 2017. A total of 102 such crimes were recorded during the same period last year.
Most crimes fell into the categories of violent assault, robbery, blackmail or hate speech. The official document describes 35 of the 130 incidents as motivated by right-wing political ideology. In one case "foreign ideology" and in four cases "religious ideology" are given as the probable cause. Authorities were unable to determine a motive for the remaining 90 cases.
Beck said that "alarm bells should be ringing" in light of a 30 percent increase in crime against the LGBT community.
The German Association of Lesbians and Gays (LSVD) has called on federal and regional governments to become more active on the side of prevention, as well as prosecuting suspects more vigorously.
While Justice Minister Heiko Maas shied away from making any concrete announcements in response, he described the statistics as "shameful."
"Homophobia must not have any place in our society," Maas said.
In June, the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag) approved the same-sex marriage in an historic vote. Enditem
