Turkey: Istanbul Pride march must go ahead unhindered
As the annual Istanbul Pride due to take place on Sunday 1 July approaches, Amnesty International, ILGA-Europe and All Out stand in solidarity with Turkey’s LGBTI+ communities and their allies, calling on the authorities to ensure Istanbul Pride march takes place without any unlawful restrictions.
Fotis Filippou, Campaigns Director for Europe at Amnesty International said:
“In the current climate of fear, where authorities are clamping down on civil society, freedom of expression and diversity, it is all the more important for LGBTI individuals to be visible and freely celebrate pride. People around the world are standing in solidarity with Turkey’s LGBTI activists and their allies, who, against all odds are marching for human rights and equality.”
The last time it took place in 2014, an estimated 90,000 people participated in the vibrant Istanbul Pride parade in Istiklal Avenue, the city’s main shopping street. This was the largest of the gatherings since 2003, when just 30 LGBTI+ activists had been present in the first ever Pride march. But all this changed when the Istanbul Governorate banned the 2015 Pride march in Istanbul, police violently dispersing participants with water cannons, tear gas and pepper ball projectiles, detaining dozens of people in the process. In 2016 and 2017, small groups of LGBTI+ activists and allies were also prevented from marching following bans by the Governorate.
Björn van Roozendaal, Programmes Director for ILGA-Europe said:
“In 2018, Pride is undoubtedly a litmus test for democratic values – a test that over the past few years, Turkey has failed to meet. It’s particularly disappointing when you consider the incredible history of Pride in Istanbul. Sadly, the restrictions on LGBTI public events since then in the region are indicative of the attempted erosion of civil society organising and human rights. History is repeating itself. And make no mistake, this is harming all of society, not just the LGBTI communities and their allies. Attacks on activism and dissenting voices, a constant refusal from authorities to engage with their citizens, and persistent disregard for fundamental rights - this is something that should provoke a reaction from all communities, not only the LGBTI movement.”
Turkey’s LGBTI+ communities are determined to exercise their right to peacefully celebrate pride. In fact, on 11 May, students at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara did just that, despite the ongoing city wide blanket ban on all LGBTI+ events. In Izmir, hundreds took part in the 6 th annual Pride march on 10 June.
Matt Beard, Executive Director for All Out said:
“We will continue to stand in solidarity with LGBTI people in Istanbul and across Turkey. Authorities can ban peaceful gatherings, they can silence dissent, they can use hard, raw power to bully and coerce others. But they will never extinguish the hunger for freedom, respect, and dignity that are at the very heart of Pride.”
Under domestic and international law, Turkish authorities are under obligation to protect the rights to freedom of peaceful expression and assembly. On 1 July, Istanbul Pride must be allowed to go ahead unhindered and be protected.
alright i have the beginnings of a theory but i need help fleshing it out.
so. all of us here have one or two defining pieces of childhood media that turned us gay, right? and what type of gay we are today is dependent upon those pieces of media. i’m trying to catalogue us– i have three categories so far, with a few different things that fit, and there’s a sort of axis going, but i can’t work out the last category and i need y’all’s help what’s the fourth quadrant
I THINK I GOT IT Y’ALL please submit your corrections down below
I will speak on behalf of polish LGBT+ community. Today (10th of July) the president of Poland (Andrzej Duda) signed a law called "THE FAMILY CARD" established to “protect” the children. The law says that for children the most dangerous are LGBT+ people. Alcoholism, pathology, domestic violence or pedophilia are not even mentioned.
Formally they call us “ideology”, “pedophiles”, “strangers”. A lot of people threaten us. We have to deal with insults everyday. They do not listen to us at all. They want to get rid of us. They use the flag of our country against us!
They want to protect children by banning sex education. By restricting the law. By restricting human rights. By restricting the individual liberty.
Please, visit the side I linked below. You will find more info on the site, a controversial video and a petition to sign for free.
(Image description: the genderqueer, nonbinary, genderfluid, trans, agender, neutrois, bigender, androgyne, graygender, and genderflux pride flags with the title Mx. centered in large text.)
During Pride Month, discover how an iconic 1930 photograph by George Hoyningen Huene inspired a ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) by Nigerian artist ruby onyinyechi amanze on view now in Scenes from the Collection.
“I responded to the calm intimacy of the couple and their shared forward outlook towards an unknown space,” says Amanze. “I also appreciate the anonymity of the figures and have further pushed that in making them not quite human. The exception is that the woman’s hair will be inspired by traditional Igbo hairstyles partly to reference the ongoing hypothesis/research/theory that Igbos in particularly (and other ethnic groups in Africa) are one of the lost tribes of Israel. I’m also interested in quietly highlighting the diversity within Judaism.”
During Pride Month, take a closer look at this 1926 painting of a gender-ambiguous couple on view now in Scenes from the Collection.Gert Wollheim, a German-Jewish artist, lived in Berlin at the height of the Weimar Republic. His portrait depicts the pair standing in a café during a period in Germany of economic instability and reckoning with the ghosts of World War I, when social convention and sexual mores were challenged. While fashionable and theatrical, the figures are not obviously women. Newly granted the right to vote, women of the era were called Neue Frau and enjoyed greater earning power and sexual freedom than ever before. Wollheim painted the couple to reflect those newfound liberties, and also used a visual trope to identify them as lesbians.
