(Istanbul) The LGBTQ+ Pride March again defied the ban and marched past the police on Sunday in Istanbul, a month after elections marked by a virulent homophobic campaign from the presidential camp.
A few hundred demonstrators waving rainbow flags, including 200 in the upscale Nisantashi district, according to an AFP photographer, marched smoothly avoiding the iconic Taksim Square, once a hotbed of protest in Istanbul. closed in the morning.
As every year now, the Pride March had been banned by the governor of the city, but the demonstrators waving rainbow flags gathered several hours before the announced start of the demonstration, in places carefully silenced until at the last moment.
The organizers welcomed their “21st pride parade despite the ban”.
“We exist, we are here my love! announced the lesbian association Solidarité mauve on Twitter, under a photo of exulting girls.
The organizers reported around forty arrests at the start of the rallies, but this number has not been confirmed by official sources.
Last year more than 200 people were arrested.
Since a spectacular parade that brought together more than 100,000 people in Istanbul in 2014, the Turkish authorities have gradually banned the Pride March, citing security reasons.
Homosexuality, decriminalized in Turkey since the middle of the 19th century (1858), remains largely subject to social opprobrium and the target of hostility from the ruling Islamic-conservative party, the AKP.
Throughout the campaign that led to his re-election on May 28, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stigmatized the LBGTQ+ communities that he copiously whistled until the evening of his victory, accusing them of wanting to destroy the traditional family. .
PHOTO ADEM ALTAN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
The Head of State has hardly held a single rally without attacking the gay and trans communities: “No LGBT can be the product of this nation”, he affirmed on several occasions, accusing the people concerned of “perverse” and “deviant”.
In September 2022, more than a hundred conservative groups and associations, mostly close to the government, had called a demonstration to demand the banning of gay and transgender rights groups.
Several hundred people were then able, without hindrance, to meet in the conservative district of Fatih, on the European side, under banners proclaiming: “Protect your family and your generation”, “We are not going to let those who the war on the family”, “Say No to the project of a genderless society”, or even “Dad + mom + baby = family”.