Ankara Governorship’s Ban on LGBTI Events Brought to Parliamentary Agenda

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Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu has brought the ban imposed by Ankara Governorship on LGBTI events to parliamentary agenda.

In his inquiry, Tanrıkulu underlined the Ankara Governorship banning both LGBTI events in the city on November 19 and LGBTI Film Days on November 16.

“Hate crimes constitute one of the crimes that most frequently end up with impunity. Rates of crime and impunity in crimes against LGBTI individuals are unfortunately very high and widespread”, the inquiry said.

What sort of precautions do the governorship take to prevent discrimination?

Tanrıkulu posed following questions to Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım:

- Isn’t the decision of ban by Ankara Governorship against the LGBTI individuals an explicit “discrimination”?

- Other than the statement concerning the ban, does Ankara Governorship have any concrete information or document?

- How many attacks occurred against individuals of different sexual orientations in cities of Turkey in the recent year? What are the names of people who were injured or killed in these incidents? What are the dates of these incidents?

- What is the current situation of the investigations launched into such incidents?

- What sorts of precautions do either Ankara Governorship or Ministry of Interior take to prevent people from being subjected to discrimination due to their sexual orientations, appearances, beliefs, ethnical origins and religious preferences?

What happened?

Ankara Governorship has banned the events to be held by “LGBTI NGOs” indefinitely on the pretext of “public morality” and “social sensitivity and sensibilities”

The Governorship banned German LGBTI Film Days on November following some tweets posted with the hashtags #LGBTFilmGünleriİptalEdilsin (#MayLGBTFilmDaysBeCancelled) and #İstiklalimizeKaraLeke (#BlackMarkOnOurFreedom).

The 11th leg of the Gender-Based Journalism Workshop carried out by the International Press Service (IPS) Communication Foundation with the support of Kaos GL, was cancelled as well as it was targeted by the media. The workshop was planned to be held on November 18, in Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin. (EA/TK)