The authorities in Turkey have arrested dozens of people since early Sunday as part of a broad crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. activists and associations, according to officials, rights groups and lawyers for the detained.
The government has called the campaign an effort to protect Turkish families, but rights organizations have accused the authorities of criminalizing L.G.B.T.Q. people and lifestyles they don’t like, and of seeking to stomp out rights activism.
Some critics of the campaign say the government is also targeting L.G.B.T.Q. people because members of that community are an active part of the political opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Emma Sinclair-Webb, who monitors Turkey for Human Rights Watch, said the actions were “a dramatic escalation in Turkey’s campaign against L.G.B.T. rights and civil society.”
The government, she noted, was conflating gay rights advocacy with prostitution, drug use and obscenity in a way that “smears L.G.B.T. people.”
“Their very identity is really being criminalized here,” she added.
Homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, but Mr. Erdogan’s government has frequently demonized L.G.B.T.Q. people and sought to push them out of public life. The authorities have banned Pride parades in Turkish cities, and Mr. Erdogan has referred to L.G.B.T.Q. people as “deviants” who were “spreading like the plague.”
Mr. Erdogan has also promoted a conservative view of the family in which marriage is between a man and a woman, men are the breadwinners and women are encouraged to have at least three children. This year begins what Mr. Erdogan has called the “Decade of Family and Population,” during which the government hopes to push up Turkey’s sagging birthrate with cash incentives and other child-friendly policies.
The arrests began early Sunday, when the security forces in Istanbul, Ankara and other Turkish cities detained more than 60 people in their homes, and raided gay bars and the offices of gay rights organizations. On Monday, scores of demonstrators protesting the detentions were arrested in Istanbul.
The government also blocked numerous social media accounts belonging to gay rights groups, as well as the accounts of a sexual health organization, a legal monitor, reporters who wrote about the arrests and the Turkey office of Amnesty International.
In a post on social media on Sunday, Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said that the operation was called “My Family is Safe.” He said the efforts had targeted 162 people, nine associations and 13 businesses suspected of involvement in prostitution and the production and dissemination of “obscene content,” including to minors.
He noted that searches by the security forces had turned up digital materials, drugs and indications of foreign funding for groups that were encouraging homosexual activity and “indecency.”
“We are steadfastly continuing our efforts to protect our children, the institution of the family and the social order,” he added.
Mehmet Sinan Birdal, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin, said the Turkish government was going after L.G.B.T.Q. people because of the community’s political opposition to Mr. Erdogan.
“Obscenity is a very vague term,” he said. “I see this as a step to further pressure civil opposition.”
Those detained in the operation included a women’s rights activist, a journalist who had written an article about gay rights in the Republic of Georgia and two founders of a health association that supports people with H.I.V.
Multiple members Kaos GL, a prominent gay rights association, were also detained.
Oya Aydin, a lawyer for the detainees from the Kaos GL association who was present during the police questioning, said that officers had asked about pictures used with news stories in the group’s online magazine that showed men and women kissing.
Yildiz Tar, editor of the association’s online newsmagazine, denounced the government’s crackdown, saying, “They call the existence of L.G.B.T.Q. obscene” and noting, “This is discrimination.”
Also arrested was Arif Sacli, a male dancer from the city of Izmir on the Aegean coast in western Turkey.
Mr. Sacli was detained earlier this year on obscenity charges after videos of him performing spread online. A Turkish court acquitted him.
The police detained him again on Sunday, and he was charged with obscenity and prostitution, according to his lawyer, Alperen Cihan Cetinkaya.
He said his client had nothing to do with either charge.
“They don’t like Arif,” Mr. Cetinkaya said. “He represents something not in line with their lifestyle.”
The arrests followed other cases in which the government tried to use obscenity laws to criminalize certain types of behavior.
Twice this year, Mabel Matiz, a singer, has faced obscenity charges over his music. A judge acquitted him in the first case, focused on some of his lyrics. A second case, focused on a video clip that shows a groom at a wedding party dancing with another man, is ongoing.
The post Turkey Begins Broad Crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. Community appeared first on New York Times.
