The Turkish police launched a large-scale operation against associations defending the rights of homosexuals and transsexuals in various regions, holding a dozen activists and conducting searches in various discos and community spaces in Istanbul.
© Lusa
13/09/2026
by
Lusa
O turkish Minister of Justice, Akin Gürlek, today announced on social network X, quoted by Efe, that under the operation “My family is safe”, legal proceedings were initiated against 162 people, nine associations and 13 establishments in 15 provinces of the country.
Gürlek stated that the operation aims at “people who facilitate prostitution” and suspected of “producing and disseminating obscene content to which children may have access”.
In addition, the police operation investigates alleged movements of money from “LGBT associations that promote immorality”, having been detected through large funds from foreign organizations, the minister added.
Homosexuality has been legal in Turkey since 1858 and it is also legal to change sex in the civil registry after a surgical intervention.
The KAOS GL association, one of Turkey's oldest and most prestigious in defending homosexual rights, founded in 1994, confirmed in a statement that its offices in Ankara were targeted by police searches and that more than ten members of the association were detained in their homes.
The social media accounts of numerous activists were also blocked and, in a simultaneous police operation at dawn, police searched several nightclubs and massage establishments in central Istanbul, it is added in the statement.
Already in June, the Turkish authorities had blocked accounts of associations and activists for the rights of homosexuals and transgenders and closed one of Istanbul's oldest gay bars, in addition to banning the scheduled schedules of a cruise with 2,700 homosexual passengers.
The Islamist AKP party, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, facilitated during the first decade in power the development of some civic freedoms, including the annual realization of the gay pride march in Istanbul, always in a peaceful and festive environment.
But it banned both this march and other protests from 2015 and, since then, intensified the speech against “immorality” and “obscenity” associated with homosexuality, defending the need to “protect the family”.