Amnesty International has called on Turkey to release three activists held for more than a month and drop charges against 53 people prosecuted over June’s banned Istanbul LGBTI Pride march.
The trial started on Friday for the 53 defendants, who include six lawyers, three journalists and several activists. Two activists, Hivda Selen and Sinem Çelebi, have been held in pretrial detention since June 30. A third activist, Doğan Nur, cited in Amnesty’s call, was jailed for a month but released last week.
The defendants are accused of violating Law No. 2911, which regulates public assemblies in Turkey and has been widely criticized for its broad restrictions on protests.
“These prosecutions mark an alarming escalation in the criminalization of LGBTI expression and peaceful assembly in Turkey,” Amnesty’s deputy regional director for Europe, Dinushika Dissanayake, said in a statement. She called the charges “baseless” and urged the immediate release of the activists.
Istanbul’s Pride march, once among the largest in the region, has been banned by authorities since 2015. Officials have cited public security concerns, the risk of “provocation” and the protection of “public morality” as reasons for the ban. Rights groups say these justifications are used to unlawfully curb freedoms of assembly and expression and are part of a broader government campaign against LGBTI visibility.
LGBTI rights have come under increasing pressure in Turkey in recent years, with authorities blocking public events, disbanding groups and detaining participants. Amnesty said the crackdown has “nothing to do with security or public order concerns and everything to do with an increasingly anti-LGBTI agenda.”
