Turkish police target LGBTQ+ activists in raids across 15 provinces
Turkish authorities launched proceedings against 162 suspects as police raids targeted LGBTQ+ activists, associations and venues across 15 provinces.
Ankara, Turkey. Turkish police carried out raids and arrests across 15 provinces on Saturday, targeting the homes and gathering places of LGBTQ+ activists in operations authorities linked to protecting the traditional family.
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said legal proceedings had been launched against 162 suspects, nine associations and 13 companies in the operations, which involved police and gendarmerie forces.
Family policy operations
Gurlek described the actions as the “My Family is Safe” operations in a post on X. He said they were conducted in provinces including Istanbul and Ankara.
He did not specify how many people had been arrested. Gurlek said the operations were part of the “Decade of the Family”, a policy declared by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan aimed at protecting “our children, the institution of the family and the social order”.
Raids in Istanbul
In Istanbul, police raided a gay bar and a nightclub regarded as a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, according to footage released by pro-government media.
A men’s hammam was also targeted.
LGBT rights organisation Kaos GL said more than 10 of its members had been arrested after police searched their homes. It said officers also searched the association’s offices.
Accounts blocked
Kaos GL said it was being targeted primarily on charges of “insulting public decency”.
The organisation’s X account, along with those of about 15 other LGBT organisations and activists, had been blocked in Turkey the previous day at the request of authorities.
Homosexuality is not criminalised under Turkish law, although hostility towards LGBT people remains widespread at senior levels of government. Erdogan has repeatedly described LGBT people as “perverted” and accused the community of contributing to the country’s declining birth rate.
Istanbul MP Ozgul Sakı of the left-wing pro-Kurdish DEM party responded on X, saying that “existence cannot be banned or prevented” and that “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights”.
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