The “politics of repression” that began with police attacking the 13th Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride March in 2015 when some 100,000 people were expected to attend, and hardened with the state of emergency declared after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, has increasingly shrunk our living spaces.
After President Erdogan characterized LGBTI+ existences as contrary to morality on Nov. 9, the Ankara governor’s office banned all LGBTI+ events within the province in an indefinite period via a statement on Nov. 18. Cancellations of events in Izmir, Bursa, Kocaeli and Mardin followed the Ankara ban. Now, LGBTI+ events within the framework of Nov. 25 — the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women — have been banned in Istanbul. These bans have followed a common program with hate speech campaigns led by dark pro-government newspapers.
At this stage, local authorities are banning events like film screenings, exhibitions, forums, panels and meetings by LGBTI+ groups in arbitrary and illegal grounds, thereby taking away LGBTI+s freedom, living space and city rights. The grounds for this attitude that is limiting our freedom has been shown as “social sensitivities and sensibilities,” “protecting public health and morality” and “protecting other people’s rights and freedoms.” But we know that the “sensitivity” in the foreground of these allegations can only be found within repressive and oppressive ones. It’s an incontestable fact that LGBTI+ individuals face discrimination in fundamental rights such as education, health, housing, employment, security and transportation in their daily lives and within the law, both in our country and the world. LGBTI+ organizations in Turkey are respectable civil society groups tied to the country’s law on associations working for more than 25 years to ensure LGBTI+ individuals lead safe, healthy and equal social and economic lives. These mass bans are completely contrary to human rights, democratic values of our century and social development is enough to show that the administration in Turkey is now at a point beyond logic.
We invite the national and international public to raise their voice to put an end this craziness. We want these decisions that are limiting our freedoms and taking away our living spaces to be reversed immediately!
We invite authorities to “allow life to go back to its normal course”!
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