Turkish police released more than 100 protesters who had been detained a day earlier for demonstrating against a major weekend crackdown on the LGBTQ community, legal rights activists and an AFP journalist said late Wednesday.
All 106 had been detained outside an Istanbul courthouse on Tuesday where rights activists were to read out a statement denouncing sweeping raids targeting members and activists of the LGBTQ community. Early on Sunday, Turkish police began raiding gay bars, nightclubs and the homes of activists and members of the LGBTQ community under a warrant naming 162 individuals, nine organisations and 13 companies in 15 provinces including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
Among them were two journalists, one from the left-leaning BirGun daily and another from Germany’s ARD television, who were held while covering the protest, CHD and BirGun said. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads an Islamo-conservative government, has described the LGBTQ community as a “deviant” movement of “perverts”. His justice minister defended the raids as a bid to protect “children and the institution of the family”.
By Wednesday evening, courts in several cities had remanded in custody 81 of those rounded up on Sunday, according to Kaos GL, a leading LGBTQ rights group that was also targeted in Sunday’s raids.
Turkey’s LGBTQ community has faced increasing pressure since the government declared 2026 to be the start of its “Decade of the Family”.
