More than 100 activists were detained briefly in Istanbul on Sunday, June 25, for participating in a LGBTQ pride march in the city. Activists participating in the march were repeatedly attacked by Turkish security forces and prevented from marching to the city’s Taksim square.
Despite the hurdles created by the security forces, some of the activists were able to reach Istanbul’s Galata Tower and hang a rainbow flag on the top of it. Before their arrest, the activists also displayed flags, shouted slogans, and marched briefly, Bianet reported.
Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, is celebrating a pride week to assert the rights of LGBTQ persons in the country. The current government led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) is accused of pursuing anti-LGBTQ politics and promoting social conservatism.
Reacting to the state crackdown on Sunday, the Istanbul Pride Parade Committee strongly condemned the harassment and arrest of activists. “We reject this politics of hatred and denial. Despite all the prohibitions, criminalization, pressures, and attempts to suppress us, we will continue to advocate for a humane life for everyone and persist in democratic living,” it said in a statement.
The statement also accused the Turkish state of “systematically attacking” LGBTI+ people, Kurds, women, refugees, and sex workers and criminalizing their lives. “To those who withdrew from the Istanbul convention and criminalized us overnight, we say: we will never submit, we will not give up our lives, our existence!”
Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul convention in 2021 despite popular protests against the move. The Erdoğan government claimed that the convention violated Turkey’s moral fabric and the institution of family and promoted LGBTQ. The convention required Turkey to enact laws to protect the rights of women and protect them from domestic violence.
Justifying the arrests, Istanbul Governor Davut Gul called the march a threat to “the institution of family” and claimed that his government will continue to take such actions, RT reported.
Erdoğan and his party colleagues have repeatedly attacked the LGBTQ community in their public speeches. During his victory speech last month, Erdoğan claimed that the opposition against his government is “pro-LGBTQ,” and said, “we consider the family sacred and no one can insult it.” He had also attacked the LGBTQ community during his election campaign rallies.
The Turkish Communist Party (TKP) issued a statement condemning the increasing state violence against the LGBTQ community, saying that “Turkey has become a country where life is getting harder and harder” for everyone, but specifically the workers, and the authorities are “targeting LGBTs” instead of finding solutions to the problems faced by the majority of the population.
