An LGBTQ pride march in Turkey went horribly awry over the weekend when police there began firing rubber bullets and tear gas on the peaceful marchers.
UK magazine Attitude reports that the march happened on Saturday, June 26. Video of the event shows the march dissolving into chaos as police began to fire on the crowd. Website Euronews also reports that police made about 20 arrests during the event.
Homosexuality is legal in Turkey, though the queer community in the nation has become the brunt of much repression under the regime of current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Governor of Istanbul had refused to authorize the march under the guise of “protection of public peace and security, general health and morality.”
Related: 17 beautiful images from Pride Month around the world
International queer rights advocate Peter Tatchell condemned the actions of the police as an assault on human rights everywhere. “The violent police repression in Istanbul was a homophobic police state in action,” he said in a statement. “The pro-Islamic regime is at war with the LGBT+ community – and also with women, Kurdish people, and the democratic opposition.
Appalling scenes emerging from #Turkey. Despite last-minute banning of @istanbulpride, police brutally attack peaceful #LGBTI+ activists. Our colleague @sariyilmz has taken shelter in a local bar and is currently surrounded by police. pic.twitter.com/glX5FvoiTR
— Civil Rights Defenders – Europe (@CRDEurope) June 26, 2021
“The international community should respond by halting all aid and arms sales to Turkey,” Tatchell continued. “We need a global campaign of boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions targeted at the ruling elite; including Magnitsky sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes.”
The chaos at the pride march is just the latest in a series of state-sanctioned anti-LGBTQ incidents in Turkey. Last year, Amnesty International called on the nation to condemn the mounting homophobic remarks by state officials in the country. That same year, schools in the nation banned children from drawing rainbows, claiming doing so would turn them gay.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, President Erdoğan also backed a government official who insisted same-sex relationships had brought about the disease.
Vince
Gay people will always be a convenient target by fascist thugs. They’re the 21st century Jews.
Kangol2
You do realize that Jewish people all over the world are still targets of hate quite regularly, right? Or maybe not. But either way, your comment is extremely offensive.
Vince
I don’t give 2 shits about what you find offensive Kankor. You’re not the official PC Police here.
Obviously there’s still violence against Jewish people. Maybe you can find countries where there’s open and institutional violence against them though. Give me some examples like this?
Kangol2
No, clearly to you it’s not “obvious” that there’s still violence (murders, etc.) of Jewish people, since you essentially erased them with your moronic equation, but you are usually good for racist idiocy on here, so why I expected to grasp how offensive your comment was, to both LGBTQ people and Jews, I do not know. In case you didn’t know, there’s “open and institutional violence” against Jews in a number of countries across the globe, but again, you seem utterly clueless in your privilege, so maybe why don’t you go to Google, look it up, and educate yourself.
Vince
If you’d stop being such a hysterical karen you’d see I just said there was violence against Jewish people. I also said pull an example like this police action against them. I’m not going to google something that I know doesn’t exist.
Pull yourself together honey or just don’t comment.
wikidBSTN
There is no reason to go there with such a comparison. Also, gays have been persecuted since time immemorial – not just in the 21st Century. How old are you? Twelve?
Kangol2
Peter Tatchell’s call for an international clampdown on Turkey is a good one. In addition to the rising state-linked homophobia, Erdogan has become increasingly authoritarian and the once strong secular wall between church and state has fallen by the wayside. The LGBTQ community there, as in a number of places, can use all the help it can get, so please push your elected officials to support stronger measures, and also donate to local LGBTQ organizations there or international ones who advocate on behalf of LGBTQ Turks.
Fahd
There seems to be a correlation between the rise of authoritarianism and the erosion of gay rights around the world. I agree with all the measures against Turkey that Tatchell proposes, but it just seems like it’s one country after another. It’s time for Western European and North American governments to commit to act to protect the human rights of gay people.
More media coverage like this story is needed so that these violations can be exposed and those who can do something are encouraged to act.
BaltoSteve
I question the effectiveness of those measures. Historically, they have been ineffective is bringing about the desired social change in Theocracies, democratic and non-democratic, as they have been used by the ruling classes in those countries as rallying cries against secular governments. You can see it with the religious right in this country. How they use any opposition as fuel that they are being “persecuted” for their beliefs. And when framed in those terms, boycotts and economic pressure create the environments radical extremist find fertile.