The police continue to use violence against not only citizens who want to practise their democratic right to protest, but also towards journalists who work for the public’s right to obtain information. As female and LGBTI journalists, we get our share of this male/ police/ state violence. We get injured, battered, prevented from doing our work, and we are subjected to sexist insults and harassment.
Boysan Yakar and Şevval Kılıç speak on behalf of Istanbul-based LGBTI organizations on 22 November 2013 City Demonstration, where thousands representing groups standing up for Istanbul met. Boysan Yakar is a candidate nominee for the Republican People’s Party’s and Şevval Kılıç is a candidate nominee for the People’s Democratic Party’s for the Şişli, Istanbul municipality
Hello Istanbul! Hello comrades!
We salute all of you as lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans and intersex people; as your next door neighbors, your friends from your neighborhoods, as your comrades resisting, fighting alongside you and seeking our rights in Gezi Park! Today we are here to unveil injustices to you. Because we are the ones who have been pushed out of cities for years as the primary victims of governments and urban transformation projects, as the ones neglected by the heterosexist and capitalist system, living without legal guarantees or employment, as the ones facing insults and patriarchal violence.
What happened yesterday, on Ülker Street in 1996, where hundreds of trans women were displaced from their homes by police operations, is the same as what is happening today in the Avcılar-Meis Housing Complex where our windows are shot at and set on fire. What disrupted our living spaces in Tarlabaşı with bulldozers and deprived us of our bread and soup yesterday, is the same as what is pushing us out of Bayram Street today, which has been our home for 40 years. It is the state and the police forces.