Political party representatives, human rights organizations, and international officials condemned yesterday's raids targeting LGBTI+ groups and activists.
Calling the operations dubbed 'My Family Is Safe' an attempt to silence advocacy, opposition figures and civil society groups called for the immediate release of those detained and an end to increasing pressure.
Dozens of people were detained during the raids on several charges including "obscenity," "prostitution" and narcotics-related charges.
People's Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party Women’s Council
"We do not accept the detention, search, seizure, and access blocking attacks targeting LGBTI+ associations, rights defenders, and digital publishing platforms.
"This operation, named 'My Family Is Safe,' as the name suggests, is an operation to subjugate society. It is clear proof of the persistent continuation of monist and sexist policies.
"Women are subjected to violence and murdered every day inside families called 'safe.' Different sexual identities are not a security problem for this country, families, or society.
"The real security issue is the violence, impunity, and discrimination that threaten the lives of women and LGBTI+s.
"You cannot keep society safe by silencing rights defenders, fueling hate crimes, blocking publications, and targeting freedom of association.
"Society's safety is possible not through oppression and bans, but by guaranteeing equality, freedom, justice, and the right to life."
Perihan Koca, DEM Party MP
"The 'My Family Is Safe' operation carried out against LGBTI+ associations and activists in İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Aydın, and Mersin is not an ordinary operation. It is a new threshold operation in the institutionalization of fascism. For the yeast of the fascist regime is stamped with hostility toward women and LGBTI+s.
"To create the subject society needed by fascism, they want to create an acceptable family and an acceptable citizen that obeys the palace.
"While data proves that the family and the home, expressed as the safest place for women under the name of the Family Decade, is where women, children, and LGBTI+s suffer the most violence and massacres, one needs to ask the palace and its cabinet: 'Which family?'
"While children you do not deign to give a single meal go to school hungry and go to bed hungry in deep poverty, while mothers and fathers who cannot bring bread home are driven to suicide, one needs to ask: 'Which family is safe?'
"Creating reactionary responses to cover up poverty, which is the real agenda of the public, is their only recourse, and the announced family decade fits right into this."
Özhül Saki, DEM Party MP
"We do not accept these operations targeting LGBTI+ associations and activists. You are inventing crimes. You are attacking people and the spaces they stand in solidarity with through fabricated crimes.
"The common point of the associations and people you target is their opposition to the pro-family, moralist, and hate-producing policies you impose. Under the name of 'protecting the family,' you want to narrow society into a single lifestyle, target LGBTI+s, and criminalize those fighting for their rights.
"Keep your family to yourselves. Your hostile understanding of morality will not decide how anyone lives, who stands beside whom, or who organizes.
"We will continue to stand against these policies that target our lives, promote pro-family bias, and produce hate and hostility."
İrfan Değirmenci, journalist and Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) Party Assembly member
"The police raid on the Kaos GL Association in Ankara early in the morning and the detentions, along with simultaneous raids in İstanbul, are attempts to intimidate us.
"Let the detainees be released immediately.
"No one's family is under threat; we are the ones under threat.
"We existed, we exist, we will exist."
Lawyers for Freedom Association (ÖHD)
"As a result of the operation targeting LGBTI+ associations, 20 rights defenders, including our clients, were detained in İstanbul and taken to the Provincial Gendarmerie Command in Maslak. There is a confidentiality order on the file and statements will be taken tomorrow. We are following the legal process."
Human Rights Defenders Solidarity Network
"We woke up to news of a large-scale operation targeting LGBTI+ organizations and rights defenders, including components of our network. We follow with great concern the raids on the offices of LGBTI+ organizations and the homes of rights defenders, the detention of numerous people, and the targeting of the LGBTI+ movement as a whole in operations coordinated by chief public prosecutor's offices.
"It is unacceptable to criminalize legitimate and legal activities conducted in the field of LGBTI+ rights by pairing them with allegations of prostitution, obscenity, drugs, and similar offenses.
"Defending human rights and LGBTI+ rights is not a crime. Our friends with whom we carry out the struggle for rights must be released immediately and unconditionally, and all pressure, targeting, and interventions aimed at preventing the existence, freedom of association, and rights advocacy activities of LGBTI+s must end immediately."
Turkish Psychiatric Association
"With this operation, not only LGBTI+s but also associations working to protect the rights, health, and quality of life of people living with HIV, develop social awareness, and fight against stigma have been targeted.
"The fact that access to the website and social media accounts of the Sexual Education Treatment and Research Association has been restricted clearly reveals the extent of this disproportion.
"In this respect, what is experienced goes beyond oppression and discrimination to criminalize access to healthcare, which is a fundamental human right. Such an approach will alienate people from health services and lead to a serious public health problem.
"We remind all responsible parties, especially state institutions and the justice system, that their duty is not to support discriminatory approaches, but to protect the rights of those subjected to discrimination."
Human Rights Association (İHD)
"On the anniversary of the Sep 12 military coup, the accounts of LGBTI+ organizations, journalists, and rights defenders were blocked; simultaneous raids were launched in numerous cities.
"This picture is not a judicial investigation; it is a political operation that forces society into a monist family model through the rhetoric of 'protecting the family and children,' aiming to liquidate LGBTI+s and independent civil society. Lumping unrelated charges like 'establishing an organization,' 'drugs,' 'prostitution,' and 'obscenity' into the same bag serves not to reveal the truth, but to portray an entire community as criminal.
"The state mindset of Sep 12, which closed associations, banned publications, and demonized those who were different, is being maintained today under the name 'My Family Is Safe.' The Justice Minister's statements, which declare guilt in advance regarding ongoing investigations and produce hate speech, are unacceptable.
"Rights defenders in detention must be released immediately; raids must end, access blocks must be lifted, and seized materials must be returned."
Nacho Sanchez Amor, European Parliament Turkey Rapporteur
"The sweeping wave of arrests and raids against LGBTI+ activists is a shocking escalation in the repression in Turkey. This imposition of a moral agenda is a blatant violation of fundamental rights and Turkey's international commitments, taking the country down a dark path."
Amnesty International Turkey
"Defending human rights and LGBTI+ rights is not a crime. Our friends with whom we fight for rights must be released immediately and unconditionally; all pressure, targeting, and interventions aimed at preventing LGBTI+s' freedom of association and rights advocacy activities must cease."
(VK)
