Being LGBTI+, forming an association, and defending fundamental human rights are not crimes
September15,2026
On September 12, the 46th anniversary of the 1980 military coup, came the news of bans on access to social media accounts that defend LGBTI+ human rights and provide support to LGBTI+ people who have suffered violence. This was followed by reports of midnight police raids and detentions targeting civil society associations, homes, and workplaces.
Administrators, employees, and human rights defenders of numerous associations were detained simultaneously in 15 provinces across Türkiye. Among those detained are EŞİK volunteers. One of them is Seniye Nazik Işık, a member of the KAOS-GL Alternate Supervisory Board, who has devoted enormous effort to the women’s movement for many years and was herself among the women imprisoned after the military coup of September 12, 1980. Işık previously served as General Secretary of the CHP Women’s Branches, as a member of the CHP Party Assembly, and as Chair of the İzmir City Council. In addition to her political work, she is known for her work on women’s rights and gender equality. She is currently the president of the Equal Life Association.
Another EŞİK volunteer detained is Nedime Erdoğan, president of the Ankara Rainbow Families Association (GALADER), which she founded to bring together families whose children or relatives are LGBTI+, so that they can support one another and stand in solidarity with their relatives and children. Ironically, in these operations, dubbed “My Family Is Safe,” (Ailem Güvende) family members of LGBTI+ people who work to ensure their children’s safety and rights and to stand in solidarity with them are also being detained. Why are they not considered families? Deliberately, a narrative is being constructed as though LGBTI+ people have no families, as though they were not part of this society.
Being LGBTI+, forming an association, and defending fundamental human rights are not crimes. Receiving donations or funding while carrying out advocacy activities is not a crime either. Associations’ receipt of assistance from abroad is regulated by law and subject to state oversight. Moreover, associations and foundations close to the government also receive funding from abroad and use public resources within Türkiye. To look at whose rights an association or foundation defends, to deem the same activity legitimate when carried out by one organization while using it as grounds for detention when carried out by another, and to attempt to halt the struggle for LGBTI+ rights cannot be explained by reference to law.
These unlawful operations directly eliminate freedom of expression and freedom of association. On social media, various negative images and messages are being circulated that have nothing to do with the rights struggles waged by these associations, their solidarity with one another, and the support services they provide [to LGBTI+ victims of violence]. Associating the struggle for rights with serious crimes such as “child abuse,” a political campaign of perception is being carried out on all fronts. These perception operations also increase the risk of a rise in hate crimes against LGBTI+ people and of their physical safety being placed at risk.
Among those whose social media accounts have all been blocked are the Sexual Education, Treatment and Research Association (CETAD), a member of the World Association for Sexual Health and the European Federation of Sexology, and the Association for Combating Sexual Violence (CŞMD). These associations work on sexual health in society, seeking to prevent sexual violence and address sexual-health problems. Restricting their activities and making them inaccessible constitutes an overt intervention in social life. It is a form of pressure aimed both at preventing society at large from being informed about sexual rights and at preventing organizations working in the field of sexual rights from acting in solidarity with one another.
Meanwhile, in the latest operations, numerous entertainment venues have been raided and judicial proceedings have been initiated against hundreds of people. This is not merely an attack on spaces where LGBTI+ people socialize; it is an attempt to impose on the entire society a uniform, sexist, and conservative conception of morality. It is an attempt to place society as a whole, and every sphere of life – from art to sports and from politics to working life –- under control through allegations of obscenity, indecent acts, prostitution, or drug offenses, targeting women and LGBTI+ people in particular.
For the same purposes, lists are circulating indicating that access bans have been ordered for numerous websites and social media accounts, including EŞİK’s Instagram account. These increasingly widespread restrictions are eliminating freedom to receive information and freedom of expression, as well as society’s right to be informed.
In short, these operations, which have been given the name “My Family Is Safe,” are an attempt to bring society under domination andto impose on society a conception of morality shaped bypolitical power.For this reason, they constitute violations of fundamental constitutional rights and of Türkiye’s international obligations.
In our country, where at least three women are murdered every day, their killers – most of whom are their husbands – are rewarded either through impunity, symbolic sentences, or overt or covert amnesties. The words of 43-year-old Hatice K., who lost both of her legs several days ago following an attack by the man she wanted to divorce, continue to ring in our ears: “These should not be be happening to a woman just because she wants a divorce.”
In a Türkiye where the murderers of women, the perpetrators of the Yenidoğan Gang [a criminal network that profited from and caused the death of sick babies in intensive care units], perpetrators of child abuse within families, and those who “marry off” very young girls are released; where families collapse under the burden of caring for their children with disabilities; where people are driven to suicide because poverty has become unbearable; and where even providing schoolchildren with one meal a day is considered too much, what needs to be done for “family safety” is clear: prevent poverty, violence, and discrimination.
These operations, carried out under names such as “protecting the family” and “family safety,” must be brought to an immediate end.
The human rights defenders currently in detention must be released immediately.
Detentions, raids, and social media access bans must be ended.
The practice of labeling LGBTI+ people’s existence; their association and socializing, whether for entertainment or in any other form; and their organizing and struggle for rights as immorality, obscenity, indecent acts, or crimes must end.
Being LGBTI+, forming an association, and defending fundamental human rights are not crimes
On September 12, the 46th anniversary of the 1980 military coup, came the news of bans on access to social media accounts that defend LGBTI+ human rights and provide support to LGBTI+ people who have suffered violence. This was followed by reports of midnight police raids and detentions targeting civil society associations, homes, and workplaces.
Administrators, employees, and human rights defenders of numerous associations were detained simultaneously in 15 provinces across Türkiye. Among those detained are EŞİK volunteers. One of them is Seniye Nazik Işık, a member of the KAOS-GL Alternate Supervisory Board, who has devoted enormous effort to the women’s movement for many years and was herself among the women imprisoned after the military coup of September 12, 1980. Işık previously served as General Secretary of the CHP Women’s Branches, as a member of the CHP Party Assembly, and as Chair of the İzmir City Council. In addition to her political work, she is known for her work on women’s rights and gender equality. She is currently the president of the Equal Life Association.
Another EŞİK volunteer detained is Nedime Erdoğan, president of the Ankara Rainbow Families Association (GALADER), which she founded to bring together families whose children or relatives are LGBTI+, so that they can support one another and stand in solidarity with their relatives and children. Ironically, in these operations, dubbed “My Family Is Safe,” (Ailem Güvende) family members of LGBTI+ people who work to ensure their children’s safety and rights and to stand in solidarity with them are also being detained. Why are they not considered families? Deliberately, a narrative is being constructed as though LGBTI+ people have no families, as though they were not part of this society.
Being LGBTI+, forming an association, and defending fundamental human rights are not crimes. Receiving donations or funding while carrying out advocacy activities is not a crime either. Associations’ receipt of assistance from abroad is regulated by law and subject to state oversight. Moreover, associations and foundations close to the government also receive funding from abroad and use public resources within Türkiye. To look at whose rights an association or foundation defends, to deem the same activity legitimate when carried out by one organization while using it as grounds for detention when carried out by another, and to attempt to halt the struggle for LGBTI+ rights cannot be explained by reference to law.
These unlawful operations directly eliminate freedom of expression and freedom of association. On social media, various negative images and messages are being circulated that have nothing to do with the rights struggles waged by these associations, their solidarity with one another, and the support services they provide [to LGBTI+ victims of violence]. Associating the struggle for rights with serious crimes such as “child abuse,” a political campaign of perception is being carried out on all fronts. These perception operations also increase the risk of a rise in hate crimes against LGBTI+ people and of their physical safety being placed at risk.
Among those whose social media accounts have all been blocked are the Sexual Education, Treatment and Research Association (CETAD), a member of the World Association for Sexual Health and the European Federation of Sexology, and the Association for Combating Sexual Violence (CŞMD). These associations work on sexual health in society, seeking to prevent sexual violence and address sexual-health problems. Restricting their activities and making them inaccessible constitutes an overt intervention in social life. It is a form of pressure aimed both at preventing society at large from being informed about sexual rights and at preventing organizations working in the field of sexual rights from acting in solidarity with one another.
Meanwhile, in the latest operations, numerous entertainment venues have been raided and judicial proceedings have been initiated against hundreds of people. This is not merely an attack on spaces where LGBTI+ people socialize; it is an attempt to impose on the entire society a uniform, sexist, and conservative conception of morality. It is an attempt to place society as a whole, and every sphere of life – from art to sports and from politics to working life –- under control through allegations of obscenity, indecent acts, prostitution, or drug offenses, targeting women and LGBTI+ people in particular.
For the same purposes, lists are circulating indicating that access bans have been ordered for numerous websites and social media accounts, including EŞİK’s Instagram account. These increasingly widespread restrictions are eliminating freedom to receive information and freedom of expression, as well as society’s right to be informed.
In short, these operations, which have been given the name “My Family Is Safe,” are an attempt to bring society under domination andto impose on society a conception of morality shaped bypolitical power.For this reason, they constitute violations of fundamental constitutional rights and of Türkiye’s international obligations.
In our country, where at least three women are murdered every day, their killers – most of whom are their husbands – are rewarded either through impunity, symbolic sentences, or overt or covert amnesties. The words of 43-year-old Hatice K., who lost both of her legs several days ago following an attack by the man she wanted to divorce, continue to ring in our ears: “These should not be be happening to a woman just because she wants a divorce.”
In a Türkiye where the murderers of women, the perpetrators of the Yenidoğan Gang [a criminal network that profited from and caused the death of sick babies in intensive care units], perpetrators of child abuse within families, and those who “marry off” very young girls are released; where families collapse under the burden of caring for their children with disabilities; where people are driven to suicide because poverty has become unbearable; and where even providing schoolchildren with one meal a day is considered too much, what needs to be done for “family safety” is clear: prevent poverty, violence, and discrimination.
These operations, carried out under names such as “protecting the family” and “family safety,” must be brought to an immediate end.
September 14, 2026
The Women’s Platform for Equality, Türkiye
EŞİK -Eşitlik İçin Kadın Platformu
www.esik.org.tr/ iletisim@esikplatform.net