Reuters —
Turkish authorities have detained at least 47 people following a series of raids on the offices of LGBTQ+ associations in an investigation into prostitution and obscenity, prosecutors said Sunday.
The crackdown is part of a campaign the government says aims to protect family values.
Istanbul’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office announced that over the weekend, investigations were carried out against 38 suspects in 12 provinces, and authorities seized drugs, digital devices, smuggled alcohol and firearms, and detained 26 of them.
Ankara’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office announced in a separate statement that 21 more people were detained as part of the investigation into the LGBTQ+ organization Chaos GL, and five others are still being sought.
Chaos GL announced that at least 50 activists were detained, more than 10 of them in police raids on their homes.
Additionally, authorities said they blocked access to dozens of websites and social media accounts associated with LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, and rights defenders.
The government crackdown, dubbed “My Family is Safe,” comes as President Tayyip Erdogan promotes the “Decade of Families and Populations” aimed at tackling the declining birthrate and aging population.
Rights groups have accused the Turkish government of increasingly targeting the LGBTQ+ community in recent years with increased rhetoric and restrictions.
“The real name of this operation is not ‘My family is safe’; it is state-sponsored discrimination, politics of fear and dismantling civil society,” the Turkish Human Rights Association said in X.
Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Turkey, said the wave of arrests was a “shocking escalation” of repression.
“The imposition of this moral agenda is a blatant violation of fundamental rights and Turkey’s international commitments, dragging the country down a dark path,” Amor said in a post on X.
Prosecutors said there was evidence that children and minors were being inappropriately influenced regarding issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Justice Minister Akin Glurek said the investigation, coordinated by prosecutors in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Aydin and Mersin, included judicial proceedings against 162 suspects, nine entities and 13 companies across 15 provinces.
