Turkey Is Now A Much More Dangerous Place For LGBT+

Fresh off his re-election victory on Sunday evening, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan went through the motions of declaring the vote a win for all Turks who participated

- BORZOU DARAGAHI

“There will be no losers in such a victory,” he said, standing atop a bus in Istanbul’s Kagithane district.

But clearly there are losers, especially Turkey’s LGBT+ community. They have been systematically targeted by security forces for years, and demonised by the country’s right-wing political leadership in the weeks before the vote. And all signs suggest they will remain a punching bag for Turkey’s right-wing government.

Just minutes after Erdogan’s obligatory pablum on Sunday, his upbeat bus speech took a dark detour. He began accusing the opposition centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), the nationalist Iyi party and the Kurdish-led People’s Democratic Party (HDP) of being fronts for a nebulous LGBT+ agenda.

“This CHP, are they pro-LGBT?” Erdogan asked the crowd of cheering supporters. “The HDP, are they pro-LGBT? Iyi Party, are they pro-LGBT?” He then referred to his own Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his far-right coalition partner National Movement Party (MHP).

“Could LGBTs infiltrate the AKP? The MHP?” Erdogan roared, in rhetoric that was so clearly provocative that the translator on Al Jazeera International, owned by the president’s Qatari allies, stopped translating it into English. “For us, family is sacred. Nobody can insult the family.”

The post-election rhetoric prompted fears of an even more widespread targeting of a vulnerable minority, and possible violence against individual members of the community.