The attacks by the Erdoğan regime against Turkey's LGBTQ+ community are instensifying:the newly Erdoğan-appointed rector of the Boğaziçi University, Melih Bulu,closed the university's LGBTQ+ students' club. #LGBTİHaklarıİnsanHaklarıdır #BoğaziciDireniyor #AşağıBakmıyoruz 1/15

A couple of days ago, 2 students of Istanbul's Boğaziçi University were detained for using a picture/piece of art depicting the surroundings of Kaaba and featuring LGBTQ+ flags ( the Kaaba itself was not in the picture) in an exhibition on campus. 2/15

The exibition was part of a month-long protest against the Erdoğan-appointed AKP politician Melih Bulu as new rector of the secularist, liberal and progressieve Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. The club house of the Boğaziçi LGBTQ+ students group was raided by the police. 3/15

The students were initially detained for "insulting religious values", but the accusation was changed because it can't be punished with a prison sentence. The accusation was turned into "inciting the public to hatred and enmity," which can be punished with a prison term. 4/15

MPs Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Ali Şeker, Sera Kadıgil, Gökçe Gökçen, Özgür Özel and Gülizar Bicer Karaca of Atatürk's secularist centre-left CHP and MPs Oya Ersoy, Meral Danış Bektaş, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu , Murat çephi, Züleyha Gülüm and Ayşe Acar Başaran of the HDP, ... 5/15

....the Turkish green party and several women's rights groups strongly condemned the most recent attack on Turkey's LGBTQ+ community. 6/15

These vile attacks comes after another very problematic attack on the LGBTQ+ community last year when Diyanet chair Ali Erbaş said that homosexuals and people who have sex out of wedlock great sinners and said they bring upon us many diseases such as HIV. 7/15

Ali Erbaş' homophobic and serophobic rhetoric was condemned by politicians of the kemalist CHP, the HDP, by the Alevi Bektaşi federation, LGBTQ+ organisations, women's rights groups, bar associations, trade unions and human rights organisations. 8/15

The aim of the regime's latest attacks is twofold: (1) intensifying the crackdown on the freedoms and rights of LGBTQ+ people, and (2) criminalising the students protests against the new rector. 9/15

Yesterday, hundreds of police officers stormed the campus of Istanbul's Boğaziçi University, Turkey's most prestigious university. 158 students got detained. Today, thousands of students took to the streets of Istanbul again. 10/15

Background info on LGBTQ+ rights in Turkey: Unlike in most countries with a Muslim majority, homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey. Homosexuality was legalised in 1858. Transgender people have been allowed to change their legal gender after surgery since 1988. 11/15

You've got gay bars and clubs in cities like Izmir, Ankara, Bodrum, Kuşadası and Istanbul. LGBTQ+ pride Parades have been taking place in Istanbul since 2003 and in Izmir since 2012. 12/15

The LGBTQ+ Pride Parade in 2013 and 2014 in Istanbul had both approx. 100 000 participants, making it one of the biggest of Europe. Since 2015, riot police cracked down on the pride parades in Istanbul and other cities. 13/15

The positive steps in terms of freedom for LGBTQ+ people in Turkey that took place thanks to the hard work of the LGBTQ+ organisations, and the CHP and the HDP have come under serious pressure the last couple of years by the increasingly authoritarian Erdoğan government. 14/15

Despite the crackdown, the support for LGBTQ+ rights in Turkey is increasing. 45 % of the people in Turkey think LGBTI+ people should have equal rights, which is a 9 % increase from last year, according to a survey by Kadir Has University in 2020. 15/15