Turkish police crack down on Istanbul gay pride march

Riot police units broke up on Saturday a march of hundreds of people trying to celebrate, as every year, the gay pride march in central Istanbul.

“The street is ours” was the slogan of the convocation, which denounces the growing hostility in Turkey against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, queer and intersex.

Protesters gathered in a neighborhood near the iconic square improvisation, surrounded by valleys by the police to prevent all kinds of protests in this space, and they briefly walked along Istiklal Avenue, Istanbul’s commercial and leisure artery.

Officers responded with tear gas and plastic bullets and made dozens of arrests, sometimes violently, reports the Turkish newspaper Spiked.

One of the detainees was the photographer of AFP, Bülent Kiliç, while covering the dispersal of the demonstration which had been banned, denounced witnesses and press freedom defenders. The AFP in Istanbul, he asked the Turkish authorities for the release of his journalist.

“We condemn the arrest of the AFP reporter Bülent Kiliç covering the pride parade in Taksim (…) We demand his immediate release ”, reacted on Twitter the organization Reporters Without Borders in Turkey.

An image showing the arrest of the journalist, blocked on the ground by police officers who rest their legs on his body, was broadcast on social networks.

Since 2003, the pride march was held at festive and peaceful way on Istiklal Street, with an influx of tens of thousands of people in 2014, the last year it was licensed.

Since, the government vetoed the march on various grounds, including that of “violation of public morals”, despite the fact that homosexuality has been legal in Turkey since 1858.

Last year, the rainbow flag, a symbol of the gay community, became the main public enemy of the Islamist and conservative sectors that support the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

For the same, these flags are now often hoisted during any anti-government demonstration, even if it has nothing to do with gay and lesbian rights, as happened during the student protests last January, or during the feminist march on March 8.

LGBT associations denounce a Power’s “hate campaign” that could encourage violence against a particularly vulnerable community.

“In Turkey, there has been a radical change regarding LGBT people since 2015. The state has declared war, so to speak, on LGBT people, ”he denounced Yildiz Tar, of the Kaos GL organization, in statements to DPA.

Tar assured that the government encourages hostility towards the group “among the general population” and denounced an increase in crimes against this community with impunity.

With information from EFE and AFP

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