Binnaz Toprak

Trans activists at the Turkish Parliament: All parties should consider LGBTI rights

Source: Ömer Akpınar, “Trans activists at the Turkish Parliament: All parties should consider LGBTI rights,” kaosGL.org, 27 November 2014, http://kaosgl.org/page.php?id=18069

Binnaz Toprak, an LGBTI ally from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), made a press statement at the Turkish Parliament yesterday to draw attention to trans murders. The demand for “Constitutional equality” was repeated in the statement joined by trans activists.

 CHP MP Toprak together with trans activists at the Turkish Parliament

CHP MP Binnaz Toprak, made a press statement at the Turkish Parliament on the occasion of Trans Remembrance Day on November 20, speaking up against discrimination, marginalization and violence.

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Milli Gazete’s Sodom and Gomorrah analogy
Milli Gazete Cover Page, 25 November 2014. Annotated.

Milli Gazete Cover Page, 25 November 2014. Part 1. Annotated. Click for full size.

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Milli Gazete: Invitation to morality!

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Conservative paper attacked Turkish MPs who attended LGBTI conference

Conservative newspaper Milli Gazete attacked the Turkish MPs who attended a conference on fundamental rights held in Tirana by the European Parliament.

Source: Ömer Akpınar, “Conservative paper attacked Turkish MPs who attended LGBTI conference,” kaosGL.org, 25 November 2014, http://kaosgl.org/page.php?id=18051

Members of Parliament Nursuna Memecan from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Binnaz Toprak from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) were in the Albanian capital on November 20-21, 2014 to participate in the conference titled “Fundamental Rights, Non-Discrimination and the Protection of Vulnerable Groups, Including LGBTI”.

Turkish LGBTI activists together with Nursuna Memecan and Binnaz Toprak

Homophobic coverage caused three MPs to withdraw participation

Following Milli Gazete reporting on the event as “Parliament gives pass for immorality” three MPs, Mehmet Metiner and Ziver Ozdemir from the AKP and Ruhsar Demirel from the nationalist MHP, withdrew their participation.

Milli Gazete today reported on the conference full page with a title “Call to Morality”, calling Islamic groups to speak up against the LGBTI “disgrace”.

The paper wrote that the AKP MP “boarded the same plane secretly” to attend the “conference of perversion” and that the CHP MP’s criticism of the paper’s coverage is a “medal of honor”.

AKP MP: LGBTI people should be acknowledged their rights

Both MPs talked with Kaos GL Association’s lawyer Hayriye Kara, who also participated in the event, and commented on LGBTI rights.

Nursuna Memecan from the AKP said “LGBTI people’s rights should be acknowledged and they should live in dignity”, celebrating the work of civil society in Turkey on LGBTI rights.

Binnaz Toprak from the CHP criticized the government for not complying with international conventions it signed and added: “We should fight for everyone facing discrimination.”

CHP’S LGBTI Candidates Not Elected due to Low Ranks on the List

Source: “CHP’den LGBTİ Adaylar Son Sıralarda Olduğundan Seçilemedi,” (“CHP’s LGBTI Candidates Not Elected due to Low Ranks on the List”) KaosGL.org, 18 April 2014, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=16365

CHP’s woman deputies critiqued Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for ranking the LGBTI candidates low on the list of candidates and for not abiding by the 33% quota for women candidates.

According to Ayşe Sayın’s news story in Cumhuriyet, CHP’s (Republican People’s Party) Bursa deputy Sena Kaleli organized a dinner upon the request of women deputies. At this dinner, deputies raised complaints about various CHP organizations’ careless and patriarchal attitudes in regard to women candidates.

“LGBTI individuals were ranked very low”

CHP’s Istanbul deputy Binnaz Toprak stated that the 33% quota for women was not implemented in the local elections and that women were not listed as candidates in places where they had stronger chances to be elected. She pointed out that CHP failed to represent all sectors of society. She said, “CHP nominated LGBTI individuals for the city council but they were ranked so low on the list that they could not be elected.”

Ankara deputy and former CHP group deputy chairman Emine Ülker Tarhan stated that she was dismayed by how HDP surpassed CHP in terms of women’s representation. She said, “You promised us that the number of women mayors and women city council members would increase. But that did not happen.”

“Women candidate names were replaced with men’s”

Women deputies critiqued various CHP organizations’ attitudes and actions in regards to women candidates and also claimed that there were some instances where the organization would replace a woman’s name on the list with a male candidate of their preference.

Kılıçdaroğlu accepted the criticism about women’s representation and declared that there would be detailed studies on this issue during this term towards building a new model and especially in relation to the organization of women’s branches.

Yeni Akit: Toprak, MP from the CHP works as if she is the representative of the homosexuals

Source: M. Emin Özkul, “CHP’li Toprak, Eşcinsellerin Vekili Gibi Çalışıyor,” (“Toprak, MP from the CHP  works as if she is the representative of the homosexuals,”) 19 December 2013, Yeni Akit, http://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/chpli-toprak-escinsellerin-vekili-gibi-calisiyor-8298.html

Yeni Akit is a conservative daily newspaper that engages in hate speech against LGBTI people and other groups. This is a verbatim translation. 

Binnaz Toprak, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Member of Parliament for Istanbul, works as though she is the representative of homosexuals in the Turkish General Assembly.

Toprak, who earlier had motioned the Parliament to initiate a Parliamentary Investigation for homosexuals, submitted a parliamentary question asking what is being done to end the ongoing victimization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual individuals.

TOPRAK IS ASKING FOR LEGAL PROTECTION FOR HOMOSEXUALS

Alleging in her parliamentary question that policies of denial, violence and elimination targeting LGBT citizens continue, Toprak said: “Despite the fact that sexual orientation and gender identity were added to the draft of the Law pertaining to the Protection of Family and Violence Against Women by joint agreement between women’s NGOs and the Ministry, they were later removed from the text by the Council of Ministers. Protection of sexual orientation and gender identity have been refused by the AKP. They are also absent from the draft law on Equality and Fighting Discrimination.”

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Yeni Akit: Support to Perverts From BDP and CHP

Source: Furkan Altınok, “BDP ve CHP’den Sapkınlara Destek,” (“Support to Perverts From BDP and CHP,”) 3 February 2013, Yeni Akit, http://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/bdp-ve-chpden-sapkinlara-destek-371.html

Yeni Akit is a conservative daily newspaper that engages in hate speech against LGBTI people and other groups. This is a verbatim translation. 

The CHP and BDP have turned into sponsors of perversion. Their “support for perversion” is clear in their reaction to the latest Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) Disciplinary Law, in which homosexuality and similar perversions remain grounds for dismissal.

The CHP (Republican People’s Party) and BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) expressed their support for the sexual deviants in their protest against the recent Armed Forces Disciplinary Law. The passing of the new law, which kept the same charges for homosexuality and similar perversions as in its older version, caused the CHP and BDP legislators to  back KAOS GL, an organization of sexual deviancy.

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CHP Toprak’s Question to PM Erdoğan on Action Plan to Eradicate Violence and Discrimination against LGBT People

Source: Not yet published on the Grand National Assembly of Turkey website- original document below as .pdf

TO THE GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF TURKEY

I request that the questions below be answered by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Sincerely,

Professor Dr. Binnaz Toprak

The policies of denial, violence, and annihilation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual citizens continue. Though NGOs and the ministry agreed to include the the terms sexual orientation and gender identity in the Draft Law on the Protection of Family and the Prevention of Violence against Women, they were later removed by the Council of Ministers. The Justice and Development Party has rejected the inclusion of the protection of sexual orientation and gender identity in the new constitution drafting process.  The drafts of the Ban on Discrimination and Article on Equality also exclude the terms.

LGBT people, the victims of horrible hate crimes, demand an end to the policies and discourses of denial, violence, and othering and the creation of an action plan to change the way of thinking and social structure that is at the root of these policies.

In this context,

1. Does the Justice and Development Party government have a political, legal, and social action plan to resolve the victimization LGBT people face?

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“Hopefully, one day, we will have a gay prime minister”

Source: Aydil Durgun, “Umarım bir gün eşcinsel bir başbakanımız olacak,” (“Hopefully, one day, we will have a gay prime minister,”) Milliyet, 20 October 2013, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/-umarim-bir-gun-escinsel-bir/pazar/haberdetay/20.10.2013/1779011/default.htm

Asya Özgür from the newly founded LGBT Political Representation and Participation Platform (LGBT Siyasi Temsil ve Katılım Platformu): “We want to see an LGBT who is out in the parliament. Hopefully, one day, we will have a gay prime minister.”

As the local elections approach, mayoral and council candidates are finalizing their preparations and of course Istanbul is in the news. Several LGBT organizations and associations in Istanbul explained, “We decided that this can not happen without us!” and founded the LGBT Political Representation and Participation Platform. We heard the details about the platform from its members Sezen Yalçın, Boysan Yakar, Asya Özgür and Deniz Şapka.

How did this platform emerge?

Sezen Yalçın: Right after Gezi, we came together and talked about what we wanted to do; it emerged from that. The LGBT movement has always been involved in the political sphere. There was a great deal of interest in our first meeting. This excited all of us and we kept organizing the meetings. We thought about what we could do to make it possible for one of us to run as a candidate and what we would demand from the locals. After we saw the local reaction at Gezi, we thought we can make our voices heard.

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CHP Toprak’s Motion to Investigate LGBT Problems

Source: “İstanbul Milletvekili Toprak, LGBT bireylerin sorunlarının araştırılmasını istedi,” (“Istanbul Parliamentarian Binnaz Toprak Requests an Investigation into the Problems of LGBT Individuals,”) Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, 15 February 2013, http://www.chp.org.tr/?p=104475

Note: Motion was rejected after parliamentary vote on 29 May 2013.

Istanbul MP Binnaz Toprak requested a Parliamentary Research to determine the problems of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people, their reasons and solution offers. Here is the motion of Istanbul MP Binnaz Toprak for a study on the problems of LGBT individuals.

–Preamble–

Individuals regarded as the “other” by the state and society, are discriminated against not only on the grounds of their race, religion, language, gender, sect, ethnic origin, and political views but also because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. In this sense, the policy of denial, violence, and discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (LGBT) citizens remains unchanged. LGBT individuals are oppressed by the majority’s pressure politically, economically, socially and psychologically.

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