Beginning of Pride week: protesters last Sunday in Istanbul Photo: AP
The LGBTQ community in Turkey has been under pressure since Erdogan used it as an enemy. Activists gathered in Istanbul to protest.
Demonstration in Türkiye is a matter of minutes. It usually doesn’t take long for the police to step in and take the participants away. But this time the organizers of the annual “Pride” march were prepared. While authorities cordoned off large areas of the streets around symbolic Taksim Square on Sunday, shut down several metro stations and deployed hundreds of police, LGBTQ parade participants simply gathered in the nearby neighborhood of Sisli. The organizers kept the venue a secret until the very end. Only selected people were informed via the Telegram network.
The number of participants was correspondingly small. According to the videos that circulated on the internet, there were just over a hundred. “Whether you find us or not, we are together,” the organizers wrote on Twitter.
So this time it took the organizers 37 minutes to report: “The police arrived at our meeting points. Drop your flags and disperse.” The uniforms had already surrounded some of the participants and started to arrest them. Initially, more than 40 people were arrested. The organizers had already manifested themselves previously through a loudspeaker. “We declare that our anger will burn him,” he said. “Despite all criminalization and oppression, we will continue to defend everyone’s right to a dignified life.”
Erdogan incites against the LGBTQ community
This year the march was of particular importance. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has targeted the LGBTQ community in his re-election campaign to mobilize his conservative voters. He described homosexuality as a contagious disease and the opposition as “LGBTists”. In his victory speech on May 28, Erdogan announced that homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people would never “infiltrate” his AKP party.
The government plans to amend the constitution to explicitly define the term “family” as a bond between a man and a woman. There are fears that this could pave the way for further criminalization. A ban on organizations campaigning for the rights of sexual minorities and a law against alleged “LGBTQ propaganda” based on the Russian model are under discussion.
AKP deputy leader Hamza Dag recently made it clear that the demonization of sexual minorities is at the top of the government’s agenda. He described LGBT rights as “social terrorism” and “the new apparatus of imperialism”. “Countries and nations that do not allow this in their societies will be the nations that will survive in the coming years.”
There is great concern that such rhetoric could encourage violent criminals and motivate Islamist parties in parliament to become involved in political bidding. Erdogan justified Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention to Combat Gender-Based Violence in 2021, saying the agreement “legitimizes homosexuality”.
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The annual Pride March in Istanbul has been held since 2003. In the year of the 2013 Gezi protests, tens of thousands joined the parade down Istiklal Street for the first time. After the protest movement was crushed, Erdogan resorted to increasingly autocratic means and increasingly propagated Islamic values. Both severely restricted the scope of the LGBTQ community. Since 2015, “Pride” marches have been banned for various reasons.
Until the presidential election in May, activists had hoped that if the opposition won, they would be able to demonstrate unhindered for the first time in years. However, the opposition kept a low profile on the matter. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the CHP opposition was evasive. It is not he who decides the ban, but the unelected governor of Istanbul. “The city could do more to support us,” said one of the organizers, who went by her stage name Tina. “For example, avoid enforcing traffic closures.”
Source: DO