The organisers of Istanbul LGBTI Pride Week are condemning the actions of Turkish police, who broke up the celebrations with water guns, tear gas and rubber bullets. The committee says the Pride March was banned at the last minute and without prior notice by the Istanbul Governorship on account of Ramadan, despite being held for the past 23 years in the city. “The police have attacked the participants, which was expected to be approximately 100,000 people, with pepper gas, rubber bullets and TOMAs [militarized police vehicles],” the group says. “With our self-respect at stake, we resisted. We resisted with our dances, our songs and our love,” it says, declaring “love will win!” The 23rd Istanbul LGBTI Pride Week had been organised around the theme ‘Normal’, which the committee says was about people gathering to say “get used to it, we are here, we aren’t going anywhere without taking back our basic rights to live, to shelter, work, education and health; We are here to live without being disdained or disapproved for existing, without being hurt and without being oppressed.” It says increasing visibility of the community has strengthened it, but also led to increasing hate attacks. “Because of this very situation, we are voicing one more time our long standing demand for laws that recognize equal citizenship and hate crimes. We will not give up this demand until sexual orientation and gender identity protections are amended as law to the constitution and until hate crime laws are passed. We will not stop until equality is achieved in both the constitution and legislation.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 29th June 2015 - 10:51am