<a fr-original-style="" href="https://twitter.com/nectug" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Marsel Tuğkan Gündoğdu</a>On Sunday, June 26, the 20th Istanbul Pride March, the closing event of the 30th Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride Week, was planned to happen. At the beginning of the week, both Pride Week events and the Pride March were banned by the Beyoğlu and Kadıköy district governorships. Of course, we should also note that for the first time, events were banned in addition to the march.Istanbul Governorate did not only ban the events. On Sunday, June 26, as of 11:00 a.m., it closed the Şişhane and Taksim stations of the M2 Yenikapı-Hacıosman subway line and the F1 Taksim-Kabataş Funicular Line, preventing access to the square via Şişhane and Taksim. The Istanbul Governorate's Provincial Directorate of Press and Public Relations also announced that streets such as Sıraselviler, Gümüşsuyu, Refik Saydam, and Asmalımescit were temporarily closed. Despite these restrictions, LGBTI+'s gathered in many avenues of Beyoğlu and marched with slogans.<h2 fr-original-style="" style="margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-weight: 500; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Targeting efforts</h2>The Istanbul Pride March was targeted by some radical Islamist and ultra-nationalist organizations, including TÜGVA, Genç Hareket, Önder Genç, Genç IHH Istanbul, Genç Öncüler, Alperen Ocakları and Yeniden Refah Partisi. These groups had called for a gathering on the same date and time. However, all these organizations withdrew their calls one day before the march. The withdrawal of the calls did not prevent provocation attempts against the event. Three people came to the event and said they were "Islamists" who point out as targeted LGBTI+ activists.<h2 fr-original-style="" style="margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-weight: 500; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Detentions and ill-treatment</h2>On the day of the march, instead of protecting the constitutional right to assembly and demonstration, security forces intervened harshly against LGBTI+ people who wanted to exercise this right, blockaded and manhandled journalists who tried to record the moment of the intervention. The number of detentions for torture and ill-treatment reached 373.This number was a record both for the history of pride marches in Turkey and for the street protests of other social groups. Lawyers wanted to accompany the detentions and statements, and they were faced with all kinds of obstruction and ill-treatment by the police at the police stations.As of Monday morning, June 27, all detainees have been released, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Thanks to the efforts of our lawyer friends who worked 24 hours a day, the Istanbul Pride Week Committee, press workers, and thousands of LGBTI+ activists who filled the streets that day and shouted that they were "neither wrong nor alone" despite everything.<h2 fr-original-style="" style="margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-weight: 500; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">No sound from the Opposition Alliance</h2>While the political power, with its appointed bureaucrats and law enforcement officers, has virtually declared war on LGBTI+ people, and 373 people, including 34 children, who wanted to exercise their constitutional rights in a protest in the middle of Istanbul were detained, there was no voice from the leaders of the opposition alliance.While this situation does not coincide with the vision put forward by the political parties that are part of the opposition alliance for the future of Turkey, they prefer to remain silent against the injustice experienced caused by everyone, especially LGBTI+ citizens, who envision a freer, more democratic and more peaceful Turkey, to question their sincerity. Because in the current situation, defending LGBTI+ rights also means defending democracy, peace, the republic, and secularism. History writes about those who took a position against LGBTI+s, as well as those who did not take a position against the violence and injustice experienced by LGBTI+s.<h2 fr-original-style="" style="margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-weight: 500; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Power may change, but demands will not change</h2>We have an important election ahead of us. Each new day brings us a little closer to the election. When we enter the election period, it would not be wrong to predict that the political power will instrumentalize LGBTI+s to polarize society more.LGBTI+ associations and rights defenders will watch political parties much more closely during the election period. They will look at the election manifestos, the list of things to be done in the first week, the first 100 days, and the first year after the change of power, to see if there is anything about them. The LGBTI+ citizens they see or do not see in these places will directly affect which party they lean towards when they go to the polls.LGBTI+ citizens should be included in the picture drawn by the political opposition for a livable, democratic, and free Turkey for everyone. Otherwise, the words spoken for freedom, prosperity, democracy, and peace will have no meaning.The society in Turkey thinks that the government will change with elections. The government may change, but the demands of LGBTI+ associations and rights defenders will not change. The real struggle will begin when the organized attacks and oppression we are currently experiencing end, and this struggle will continue until the constitutional demands of LGBTI+ citizens are met. Let's tell the future government clearly in advance.*SPOD Political Participation Responsible

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