PM Countersued in “Queer” Case

LGBT activist Levent Pişkin filed a complaint against PM Erdoğan who previously sued him over a tweet on queer-ness.

“By considering queer as an insult, PM is insulting queer-ness as a sexual orientation,” Pişkin claimed.

LGBT activist also stood trial within the “tweet” case this morning, claiming that queer-ness was an insult but a sexual orientation.

He countersued PM Erdoğan according to Turkey’s TVK Article 125/1.

Why is “queer” not an insult?

In his defense, Pişkin claimed that LGBTI people suffered from discrimination the most departing from the language.

“LGBTI organizations, my article on bianet, various demonstration banners demonstrate that queer is a term appropriated by a wide range of LGBTI people.

“For instance, we can demonstrate the degrading and discriminative language of the society with the usage of ‘queer’. At this point, we see a psychological manifestation of hatred towards homosexual individuals. As we have said earlier, queer-ness expresses a state of being rather than an insult or behavior. Queer (ibne) is the old-Turkish version of homosexual. For example, Ferit Develioğlu’s Ottoman Turkish dictionary, the 9^th meaning of Levent is queer. The first meaning on the other hand is navy. This is related to the phenomenon that most navies were having homosexual relations back then.

Pişkin also gave examples of Turkish Language Institute’s entry on the word “queer”. In the light of these, he asked the panel judges on the basis of “queer-ness” as an insult.

He also reminded ECHR verdicts related to the limits of tolerance on politicians which must be interpreted broader.

“Politicians must be more tolerant with criticism,” he said.

What happened before?

PM Erdoğan reportedly filed a complaint against LGBT activist and People’s Democratic Party Beyoğlu District Chair Levent Pişkin over his tweet “I am hunky-dory queer. I won’t learn queer-ness from you. I am expecting a statement from you”.

The aforementioned tweet originated from PM’s statement “I am a hunky-dory Alevi”.

Upon the tweet, PM Erdoğan reportedly filed a complaint against Pişkin for defamation via the media.

“I will countersue PM for humiliating homosexuality,” Pişkin told bianet.

“Queer-ness is a sexual orientation. This isn’t an insult. By suing me, PM himself has committed an insult crime here. I will countersue this and symbolically ask 1 lira for damages.” (ÇT/BM)