Turkish police have detained dozens of people after conducting nationwide raids targeting LGBTQ organisations.<\/p>\n
Police swooped on gay bars, offices and homes of activists in major cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Mersin on Sunday, escalating Turkiye\u2019s decade-long hostility towards LGBTQ groups.<\/p>\n
State news agency Anadolu quoted prosecutors in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir as saying that at least 63 people were detained, the AFP news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said in a social media post on Sunday that prosecutors had launched an investigation into 162 suspects, nine associations and 13 businesses to \u201cprotect children, the institution of the family, and public order\u201d.<\/p>\n
Turkish authorities targeted current and former members of multiple LGBTQ rights and HIV awareness groups. The organisations\u2019 websites were blocked days before the police raids.<\/p>\n
Gurlek said the \u201cMy Family is Safe\u201d operations on Sunday aligned with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s 10-year \u201cDecade of Family and Population\u201d executive order, which aims to combat Turkiye\u2019s falling birthrate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs per the duty to protect families and children given to the state by the constitution, no criminal organization, abuse network or illegal activity which targets children, youths or families will be tolerated!\u201d Gurlek wrote on X.<\/p>\n
LGBTQ rights organisation Kaos GL, whose offices were searched and activists taken into custody, said that \u201cnearly 50 defenders of the rights of LGBTQ people \u2026 have been taken into custody or are subject to legal proceedings involving interrogations or detentions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judicial authorities in Turkiye\u2019s capital, Ankara, accused Kaos GL of publishing \u201cposts containing obscenity\u201d online and said that the content was accessible to children, according to the rights group.<\/p>\n
Rights activists accused the Turkish government of hardening its rhetoric and restrictions against Turkiye\u2019s LGBTQ community in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real name of this operation is not \u2018My Family is Safe\u2019; it is state-led discrimination, politics of fear and the dismantling of civil society,\u201d the Turkish Human Rights Association said on X.<\/p>\n
The European Parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Turkiye, Nacho Sanchez Amor, condemned the detentions as \u201ca shocking escalation in the repression\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
The governing AK Party\u00a0banned\u00a0Istanbul Pride in 2015. Any\u00a0attempted gatherings\u00a0since then have been\u00a0violently dispersed\u00a0by authorities<\/p>\n
Source: Al-Jazeera<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkish police have detained dozens of people after conducting nationwide raids targeting LGBTQ organisations. Police swooped on gay bars, offices and homes of activists in major cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Mersin on Sunday, escalating Turkiye\u2019s decade-long hostility towards LGBTQ groups. State news agency Anadolu quoted prosecutors in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir as saying…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":97195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97197,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97194\/revisions\/97197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}