Turkey arrests dozens in anti-LGBT+ crackdown, shuts down hundreds of social media accounts

Authorities in Turkey arrested dozens of journalists and LGBTQ+ activists under obscenity charges. Meanwhile, hundreds of social media accounts were shut down as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan touts the crackdown as being necessary to increase the country’s birth rate.

“This is the widest crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in recent years,” Emma Sinclair-Webb, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch, told The Guardian.

International reports place arrest estimates between 60 and 150 people in the latest crackdown on LGBTQ+ activities, marketed by the government as the “My Family is Safe” campaign.

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Starting on Sunday, Sept. 13, the government reportedly started conducting raids, not only on LGBTQ+ night clubs and activist organizations but on HIV advocacy groups. The Turkish Interior Ministry released footage itself of authorities rummaging through filing cabinets and seizing rainbow flags from desks.

The raids occurred in Turkey’s capital city of Ankara and in the country’s largest metropolis, Istanbul. They also targeted journalists including Tuğba Tekerek, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Tekerek was formally arrested on Sept. 15 after writing a news article for the advocacy organization KAOS GL. Tekerek has been a professional reporter and had allegedly written a single article for the LGBTQ organization’s news portal. She now faces obscenity charges related to a news article about elections in Georgia.

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Meanwhile, courts in Istanbul have ordered more than 400 social media accounts be shut down over pro-LGBTQ+ content, according to Balkan Insight.

The state-run Anadolu Agency announced the national Cyber Crimes Investigation Bureau and Istanbul Police had conducted an investigation supposedly intended to protect families. That resulted in access to at least 419 accounts becoming blocked or limited based on links to “obscene content.” The sweep shut down accounts for journalists, activists, media houses, and women’s civil society groups.

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Journalist Sirin Payzin, a former CNN contributor whose X account has 1.8 million followers, reportedly cannot be viewed by devices in Turkey now, but has continued to post on the information crackdown.

“If you think banning journalists and closing accounts will solve the problems, I'm sorry to say you're sorely mistaken—let me just point that out,” Payzin wrote in a Sept. 16 post.

Under Erdoğan, who became president in 2014, human rights have deteriorated rapidly in what was once among the most moderate Islamic nations in the Middle East, especially since a failed 2016 coup, according to the Human Rights Foundation. During period of uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the government in Turkey has often ramped up culture wars against LGBTQ+ populations.