Turkey and the case of banned Pride

In the summer of 2019, Melike and Özgür, as well as a group of their companions, protested against their university's decision to ban that year’s student-led Pride event. They’d be completely unaware as to how this would change their lives. Sitting peacefully on the lawn of Middle Eastern Technical University, the arrival of the police would see these protestors accosted with plastic bullets and tear gas. Many were injured.

However, some activists have also been facing legal troubles due to these peaceful protests. A year later, 18 students and 1 academic staff were charged with ‘participating in an unlawful assembly’ and ‘failure to disperse’. If sentenced, Melike, Özgür, and several others could face 3 years in prison.

Although once seen as a refuge in the Middle East from homophobia, turkish attitudes towards same-sex relationships have become increasing hostile in recent years. Despite homosexuality being legal in Turkey for decades, recent comments by President Erdogan have included comparing gay people to perverts, and deriding homosexuality as an attack on turkish values, resulting in a widespread growth in discrimination. Indeed, after a single televised sermon from a religious official condemning homosexuality as an ‘illness’, verbal and physical attacks on LGBTQ doubled in the following 45 days.

As such, this new environment has resulted in a plethora of banned events similar to that of METU. Banned for the 5th year in a row, the turkish annual Pride march was broken up by police using tear gas and questionable force. Although Turkey's Minister of Interior says that all applications for events are assessed individually, the banning of all events associated with LGBTQ+ has become all the more common in turkish society, prompting questions about violations of free speech. This is supported by the 2020 ruling of an administrative court in Ankara, which argued the university’s ban of Pride had no legal basis.

Amnesty International’s position is as follows: “the ban of the Pride march lacked legal grounds and these brave students who defied it had their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly violated. They must be acquitted.”

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/12/turkey-students-facing-three-years-in-jail-for-celebrating-pride-must-be-acquitted/