Filiz Kerestecioğlu

AKP MP: “Homosexuality is one of the biggest threats”

AKP MP Ayşe Doğan made homophobic remarks at the TBMM Commission on Equal Opportunity for Women and Men: “Everybody knows that this can be one of the biggest threats to our society.”

Source: “AKP’li vekil: ‘Eşcinsellik en büyük tehditlerden biri,'” (“AKP MP: ‘Homosexuality is one of the biggest threats,'”) kaosGL.org, 17 February, 2016, http://www.kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=21120

TBMM [The Grand National Assembly of Turkey – Trans.] Commission on Equal Opportunity for Women and Men discussed, in yesterday’s meeting, the proposal that a Human Rights and Equality Foundation of Turkey should be formed as a subsidiary organ in order to focus on protecting and improving human rights based on individual’s dignity, to ensure their right to be treated equally, and to prevent discrimination in benefiting from lawful rights and freedom.

CHP and HDP were critical of the exclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity from the proposal

Based on the Turkish daily Hürriyet’s news, Candan Yüceer, Republican People’s Party (CHP) [opposition party – Trans.] Tekirdağ MP, stated that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans individuals are faced with discrimination and killed. Yüceer further added that overlooking this problem, and interpreting the recommendations listed in the international agreements would mean ignoring the individuals who are being discriminated against.

Yüceer suggested that excluding sexual orientation and gender identity from the proposal would mean that “all will benefit from the lawful rights and freedom, except for those who are less equal.”

Filiz Kerestecioğlu, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) [opposition party – Trans.] İstanbul MP, emphasized that sexual orientation and gender identity must be included in the proposal, and that turning a blind eye to these individuals would not simply make them disappear.

Homophobia from AKP MP

Ayşe Doğan, Justice and Development Party (AKP) [the ruling party – Trans.]  Tekirdağ MP, made the following homophobic remarks in response to Yüceer and Kerestecioğlu:

“There is no need to change our commission’s agenda by including a different subculture, with artificial sexual tendencies that are not in line with human nature and our society’s customs and traditions. Here, we discuss values in professional life as ladies and men. There is no point in bringing up [a] different group’s private life and their private gender identities in bedroom. Everybody knows that this can be one of the biggest threats to our society.”

Kerestecioğlu stated, upon hearing Doğan’s remarks, that she is “flabbergasted, and could not believe her ears,” and that she finds them utterly odd.

The HDP Istanbul candidates sign the LGBTI Rights Pledge

SPoD LGBTI is circulating an LGBTI Rights Pledge, part of the “LGBTI in the Parliament” campaign, for signatures in the run-up to the June 7th parliamentary elections in Turkey. The first signatories to the Pledge are HDP’s women candidates who proclaimed “We are the Rainbow.”

In the run-up to the parliamentary elections to be held on June 7th, the Istanbul based LGBTI advocacy group SPoD (Social Policies, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association) is circulating the LGBTI Rights Pledge to be signed by parliamentary candidates. Representatives of SPoD LGBTI drafted the LGBTI Rights Pledge as part of their “LGBTI in the Parliament” campaign. The campaign was started in February in order to demand the active inclusion of LGBTI individuals in decision and policy making processes. SPoD representatives visited the HDP [People’s Democracy Party], whose female candidates for Istanbul signed the Pledge. The candidates had previously included a section in their election manifesto called “We are the Rainbow.”

Are you ready to defend LGBTI rights?

The participants of the meeting, which was held in the HDP Istanbul Province Building, included Istanbul 2nd District parliamentary candidates Filiz Kerestecioğlu, Gülsüm Ağaoğlu, İnciser Alptekin, Elif Sırlıoğlu, Istanbul 3rd District parliamentary candidates Hülya İmak and Elif Bulut as well as  representatives from SPoD.

SPoD LGBTI Political Representation Field Coordinator Sezen Yalçın underlined the importance of the section “We are the Rainbow” in the HDP’s election manifesto for the LGBTI and asked the parliamentary candidates: “Are you ready to defend the LGBTI rights?” Lawyer Filiz Kerestecioğlu, the HDP candidate from the 2nd District, read out loud the LGBTI Rights Pledge and said: “We became candidates in order to carry the voices of the street and their struggles into the parliament.”

Gülsüm Ağaoğlu described the HDP election manifesto as a poem of human rights rather than a mere promise, and stated that, as a party open to all the colors of the rainbow, it is their goal to implement the demands outlined in the Pledge. Imak said, “When ‘we’ are in the parliament, you will be there as well. We are not your representatives, but are the voices of all those who have been victimized.” Bulut, Alptekin and Sırlıoğlu signed the Pledge and added that it is their wish to see a political environment where everyone can coexists while enjoying their rights and their identities without the need for such a pledge.

SPoD’s eyes are on the parliamentary representatives

SPoD LGBTI calls on the parliamentary candidates to embrace a political position that guarantees the LGBTI rights and freedoms and will share with the public the names of  parliamentary candidates who sign the pledge. If the candidates get elected in the upcoming parliamentary election, SPoD will hold them accountable to their pledge through monitoring their work in the new legislative period.

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