Turkish authorities have detained more than 150 demonstrators in Istanbul and dozens in Ankara as part of a wave of raids and arrests targeting the LGBTQ+ community, which rights groups describe as the widest crackdown in recent years. The operation, which began in the early hours of Sunday, involved simultaneous police raids on the offices of LGBTQ+ rights organisations and HIV-advocacy groups in Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Aydın, and Mersin.
Raids and arrests under obscenity laws
Turkish police have used accusations of obscenity to justify the raids, which also extended to the homes of activists and nightclubs. Video released by the Turkish interior ministry showed police rummaging through filing cabinets, grabbing rainbow flags, and leading people away in handcuffs. Prosecutors in Istanbul said officials seized digital equipment, drugs, and a firearm, as well as arresting dozens of people.
Rights groups tracking the arrests believe that 62 people have been held on remand, but more than 100 were detained. Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch said, “This is the widest crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in recent years.” She accused authorities of attempting to smear and criminalise LGBTQ+ advocacy, adding, “We believe this includes others not associated with LGBTQ+ groups [detained] for drug and prostitution offences.”
Government defends operation as protecting families
While homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, prosecutors in Ankara have accused LGBTQ+ rights groups of violating laws prohibiting “obscenity” and those governing NGOs, although formal charges remain opaque. Turkey’s justice minister, Akın Gürlek, said the raids and arrests were part of an operation entitled “My Family is Safe” and claimed the sweep was intended to “protect our children, the institution of the family and the social order”. Authorities targeted venues they claimed were associated with prostitution, distribution of obscene material “and activities exposing children to such content”.
The Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish press freedom group, said the crackdown included seven members of the executive board of Kaos GL, one of Turkey’s oldest LGBTQ+ advocacy groups that also operates a news site. Journalist Tuğba Tekerek was arrested at her home in Istanbul and taken to Ankara for questioning after publishing a piece with Kaos GL on the LGBTQ+ community in Georgia.
Protests met with teargas and mass detentions
As the initial raids sparked protests, the wave of arrests grew this week. Turkish authorities teargassed hundreds of protesters in İzmir and detained at least 150 demonstrators in Istanbul on Tuesday, as well as dozens more in Ankara. The French news agency AFP reported that several arrests outside a courthouse in Istanbul took place after demonstrators unfurled a banner that read “Being LGBTQ+ is not a crime” and chanted “Long live the struggle for freedom.”
A draft amendment to Turkey’s penal code that proposed prosecuting all LGBTQ+ people for promoting behaviour “contrary to biological sex and general morality” was withdrawn last year. Instead, authorities have increasingly targeted LGBTQ+ individuals and groups using broad “obscenity” charges. Eleven leaders of the Genç LGBTI+ [Youth LGBTI+] organisation went on trial last month, accused of violating constitutional provisions on “family values” and publishing images showing same-sex couples kissing, charges that carry up to three years’ imprisonment.
Rights groups question effectiveness
The justice minister linked the launch of the “My Family is Safe” campaign to a directive by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declaring “a decade of the family and population” and aiming to boost birthrates. Gürlek said, “Our family ties are weakening, the average age of marriage is rising, divorce rates are increasing and as a result, our fertility rate is declining. To be honest, the statistics are alarming for all of us.”
But rights groups have questioned how arresting LGBTQ+ activists and demonstrators protects Turkish families. Sinclair-Webb said: “Obviously, protecting children and the family is important – no one is debating that – but in a country with a large and concerning record of domestic violence, many cases of child abuse and murders of women, the protection of the family cannot be focused on LGBT people.” The crackdown has raised concerns about press freedom and the use of obscenity laws to stifle dissent, with further legal proceedings expected against those detained.
