The United Nations human rights office on Thursday called on Turkey to immediately release people it said had been arbitrarily detained in a nationwide crackdown on the LGBTQ community.
“Very concerned by reports of mass arrests & detention of over 150 LGBTIQ+ individuals and human rights defenders and reports of their ill treatment in detention, and the potential impact this development could have on civic space,” the office said in a post on X.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk “urges Turkish authorities to uphold everyone’s human rights without discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and to immediately release those arbitrarily detained,” the office added.
Turkish police began conducting raids on LGBTQ organizations, bars, nightclubs and activists’ homes on Sunday.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the operation involved legal proceedings against 162 people, nine organizations and 13 companies in 15 provinces. The figure did not represent the number detained.
According to the Lawyers for Justice group, 109 people were detained in the raids. The government has not released a consistent nationwide detention figure.
By Thursday, courts in several provinces had jailed at least 82 people pending trial. The cases involve LGBTQ activists and members of rights organizations as well as people accused of prostitution, drug offenses and other crimes. Not everyone jailed is accused of LGBTQ advocacy.
Gürlek defended the raids as an effort to protect “children and the institution of the family.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly described the LGBTQ community as a “deviant” movement of “perverts” and blamed it for Turkey’s falling birth rate.
The government has linked the crackdown to its “Decade of the Family” program, introduced in response to falling birth rates and an aging population.
Although same-sex relations are legal in Turkey, LGBTQ people and organizations have faced growing government pressure, including bans on Pride events, investigations of rights groups and restrictions on websites and social media accounts.
© Agence France-Presse
