The Japan Times - Courts jails LGBTQ activists as Turkey crackdown widens

The move came as authorities broadened an operation against the LGBTQ community in which more than 200 people were detained, sparking a backlash from rights groups at home and abroad.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads an Islamo-conservative government, has described the LGBTQ community as a "deviant" movement of "perverts". His justice minister defended the raids as a bid to protect "children and the institution of the family".

In the early hours of Sunday, police raided gay bars and the homes of LGBTQ activists with a warrant naming 162 individuals, nine organisations and 13 companies across 15 provinces, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

According to Lawyers for Justice (AIH), around 110 people were detained on Sunday.

Of that number, 62 have been ordered held in jail by courts in Ankara, Izmir, the southern city of Mersin and Aydin in the west.

According to the MLSA rights group, 13 of them were jailed by an Ankara court on Tuesday night including seven from Kaos GL, a leading LGBTQ rights group, five transgender people and a journalist.

Another 28 were jailed in Mersin, the DHA news agency said.

The remaining 29 detainees were to appear before an Istanbul court on Wednesday, AIH said.

- Over 100 protesters detained -

Separately, more than 100 people have been arrested while protesting against the crackdown in Turkey's biggest cities over the past two days.

Two journalists covering the protests were also arrested: one from the left-leaning BirGun daily and another from Germany's ARD television, the Turkish Journalists' Union said.

Police fired teargas at around 200 protesters in Izmir on Monday, then on Tuesday broke up a demonstration outside an Istanbul court, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

There they detained 106 people, according to AIH and CHD, another legal association.

They also broke up an evening protest in Ankara, reportedly detaining around dozen people although there was no independent confirmation of the numbers.

Authorities have also blocked dozens of social media accounts belonging to LGBTQ rights groups, media outlets and journalists that covered the crackdown.

They include the accounts of MLSA, Amnesty International Turkey, Academics for Peace and Evrensel newspaper among others.

Although same-sex relations are legal in Turkey, hostility towards LGBTQ people remains widespread, with homophobia evident even at the highest levels of government.

Turkey's LGBTQ community has faced increasing pressure since the government declared 2026 to be the start of its "Decade of the Family".

The crackdown has drawn criticism from opposition parties and the European Union. The European parliament's Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor described the arrests as "a shocking escalation of repression" that was "taking the country down a dark path".

M.Sugiyama--JT