News and Events => Political and Legal News => Topic started by: Jessica_Rose on October 13, 2026, 12:31:12 PM Return to Full Version

Title: ‘Governments that attack LGBTQ+ rights learn from each other’
Post by: Jessica_Rose on October 13, 2026, 12:31:12 PM
'Governments that attack LGBTQ+ rights learn from each other'

https://www.washingtonblade.com/2026/10/13/governments-that-attack-lgbtq-rights-learn-from-each-other/

Andrew J. Sciallo (13 Oct 2026)

Sept. 12 is a solemn day for the people of Turkey. It is the anniversary of the 1980 coup d'état — when members of the National Security Council, along with the armed forces, dissolved the Turkish parliament, arrested hundreds of thousands of people, and entered a three-year period of martial law.

On Sept 12, the 46th anniversary of the 1980 coup, the country faced another wave of arrests; this time they targeted the LGBTQ community. The government launched the national "My Family Is Safe" campaign, which triggered mass raids and arrests of LGBTQ organization leaders, advocates, academics, and sexual health treatment centers for people with HIV. (These include EU-funded organizations launched by the Turkish government in 2005.) Since the nation has seen a decline in birthrate and a swelling economic crisis, this has allowed authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and conservatives in Turkey to use the LGBTQ community as the ideal scapegoat.

"This is the cruelest part. It was Erdoğan's own party that made it easier to found NGOs in 2005 as an EU accession process, and that is how many LGBTI+ groups came to be officially registered." Ali Yildiz, a linguistics graduate student at the University of Cologne in Germany, told the Washington Blade. "Everything was legal, transparent and official. Now those same registrations are being used as arrest lists. The state is basically punishing those who trusted it. It sounds very much like the Nazis. They also used member lists of associations to persecute them later."
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@Sarah B
Title: Re: ‘Governments that attack LGBTQ+ rights learn from each other’
Post by: Lori Dee on October 13, 2026, 02:42:59 PM
Coming soon to a country near us!

The time to prepare is now.