Zak Kostopoulos

Zacharias "Zak" Kostopoulos (; 22 August 1985 – 21 September 2018) was a Greek-American activist, defending the rights of LGBT people, HIV-positive people, sex workers, and refugees. He worked as a drag performer under the stage name Zackie Oh. He studied acting and marketing in school. He was also HIV positive. He was the president of the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece (OLKE) organization. Kostopoulos participated in drag performances in Athens under the alias, "Zackie Oh". In 2017, he performed Disco Inferno at Athens Pride.

Death

Kostopoulos was killed on 21 September 2018 at Gladstonos Street in the center of Athens, and was buried in the town of Kirra where he grew up.

It is unknown how Kostopoulos entered the jewelry shop on Gladstonos street where his killing began. Another Greek LGBT activist, , said that he entered the shop to escape an altercation on the street. Videos of the killing show Kostopoulos unarmed and trying to escape from the store as he is being attacked by the store's owner and another man, a real estate agent who was a high-ranking member of the National Front. After a window was broken by the owner, Kostopoulos crawled out, was kicked in the head, and fell to the ground. Kostopoulos' family commissioned the UK-based research center Forensic Architecture to investigate his death. Forensic Architecture found that the police had overlooked twelve cameras that were recording the scene and failed to question a key witness who appeared in the footage. On 3 May 2022, two men were found guilty, while the police officers were found innocent.

Legacy In 2018, 2019, and 2021 activists organized marches in Athens to commemorate Kostopoulos' death and call for justice against his killers. The slogan "Zackie lives, smash the Nazis" was chanted at events across the country.

In 2019, Nasos Iliopoulos, who is the leader of the Syriza faction inside the Municipal Council of Athens, proposed the renaming of Gladstonos street to Zak Kostopoulos street . The Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, responded with a counter-proposal to create a monument against intolerance, racism, and hatred, that the majority voted in favor of.

In 2021, a researcher at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki named a newly discovered species of cyanobacteria, the Iphianassa zackieohae, after Kostopoulos.