Censorship

Facebook Censorship of Lesbian Bisexual Feminists

The Facebook page of Lesbian Bisexual Feminists has been shut for the reason of “pornography”. LezBiFem criticized that Facebook continues to censor LGBTIs while simultaneously running campaigns like #LoveWins during Pride Week.

Source: “Lezbiyen Biseksüel Feministlere Facebook Sansürü”, (“Facebook Censorship of Lesbian Bisexual Feminists”), kaosGL, 12 February 2016, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=21079

Facebook Turkey’s management shut down the Lesbian Bisexual Feminists’ page. The reason for the censorship was that the content shared on the page “violated [Facebook’s] community standards”.

The most recent contents shared on the page were an invitation to a conference by [women’s rights organization] Mor Çatı, an article titled “Bras; A Product of Patriarchy” on biliyomuydun.com, and the poster for LezBiFem’s planned party on 13 February. When LezBiFem promoted the party poster through advertisements, Facebook had stated that the image did not fit advertising standards.

Campaigns for Pride Week and then censor LGBTIs!

After the closure of their Facebook page, LezBiFem told KaosGL.org that “the Lesbian Bisexual Feminists are now the target of Facebook’s morality”.

LezBiFem said, “We are guessing that our page was removed by Facebook after last night’s post on bras did not abide by community morality” and criticized that Facebook continues to censor LGBTIs when it simultaneously runs campaigns like #LoveWins during Pride Week:

“Facebook supposedly creates a free social arena through its Love Wins campaign throughout Pride Week but has now peaked with its anti-woman, heteronormative, and morality-based example”.   

This is not Facebook’s first LGBTI censorship!

This is not the first time Facebook has censored LGBTIs. Previously during the 2015 Pride Week, the event page “Lesbian Sexual Health: Myths and Truths” was closed due to the community standards reason.

Facebook Turkey’s management had also censored KaosGL.org’s news story titled “Naked against homophobia” in July 2015. The article was removed from shared content for violating community standards.

Facebook’s censorship was not limited to KaosGL.org. Bianet’s news story on Facebook’s censorship of Kaos GL’s article that depicted the Brazilian gay couple who shed their clothes against homophobia was also censored.

 

Yeditepe University knows no limits in homophobia

Source: “Yeditepe Üniversitesi Homofobide Sınır Tanımıyor!” (“Yeditepe University knows no limits in homophobia,”), KaosGL.org, May 8, 2014,http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=16550

Yeditepe University administration knows no limits in homophobia: censorship, prevention of academic study, offenses against freedom of association.

Anti-homophobic and transphobic students from Yeditepe University wrote a declaration regarding ongoing, frequently occuring homophobic and transphobic attitudes of the college administration. Concerned by possible threats to their ongoing education, the students could not reveal their names but spoke of what they experiences at the college:

LGBTI visibility is a problem for the administration”

“As LGBTI and ally students, we would like to state our relentlessness because of the frequently occurring homophobic and transphobic events in the school. Although there are LGBTI people in the school, the LGBTI visibility and its organization disrupts the status quo and is censored and obstructed by certain university institutions. We made a list of unfortunate events and would like to share them with you.”

Our right to organize is obstructed”

“Like LGBTI organizations and communities in many universities abroad, there are LGBTI organizations in various universities in Turkey. However in Yeditepe University, the idea of an LGBTI club is perceived as a disturbance. When we applied to the authorities for a gender studies club, the petition was not even considered for approval and the authorities stated verbally that these kinds of organizations would disrupt the school and damage its reputation.”

In their opinion, there can be no academic study over gender!

“Moreover, they claimed that there can be no academic study in this field. Our regulations, activity guidelines, proposed conferences and events that we would like to host, as listed on our application, were determined not worthy to be evaluated. The application dates announced to us were always postponed to future dates; but during this time, other clubs were permitted to be established. Furthermore, they permitted certain clubs to be founded on the dates we were not allowed. This is an indication as to how arbitrary in their decisions and how homophobic in their perspective the university administration is. To this date, we do not have any clubs for gender studies and the efforts of other clubs on this issue have been censored.”

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Court Finds French Book “Indecent”

Source: “Yargıtay, Fransızca kitabı ‘müstehcen’ buldu,” (“Court Finds French Book “Obscene”,”) Radikal, 6 August 2013,  http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/yargitay_fransizca_kitabi_mustehcen_buldu-1145084

The owner of the publishing house “Sel Yayıncılık” İrfan Sancı and the translator İsmail Yerguz were put on indecency trial for publishing and translating the book “The Exploits of a Young Don Juan” written by Guillaume Apollinaire.

Istanbul, 2nd Court of First Instance arrived at a verdict to acquit, since the book was a literary work and does not constitute crime. Then the verdict was appealed and the file was seen at the 14th Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals. The Penal Chamber denounced the verdict of the Court of First Instance unanimously, dropped the decision, and requested the defendants to stand trial for 6 to 10 years imprisonment.

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