BERLIN (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hate crimes against LGBT+ people increased by 36% in Germany in 2020, highlighting an increase in homophobic attacks and politically motivated violence in the country in recent years, the government and campaigners said on Tuesday. A total of 782 crimes targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were reported last year, about 150 of which involved violence, police data showed. “Hate crimes against queer people have been on the rise in the past three or four years,” said Markus Ulrich, a spokesman for Germany’s biggest LGBT+ group LSVD. “There is a trend,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that the rise might also partly reflect greater willingness among LGBT+ people to go to the police to report crimes against them. The figures released on LGBT+ hate crimes did not include the killing last year of a gay man in Dresden and another in Altenburg because they were classified as murders rather than hate crimes. A Syrian man has been charged with the Dresden killing and two far-right supporters are accused of the Altenburg murder.