26/06/2023 | Writer: Selma Koçak
Closure of Taksim by the police couldn’t prevent lubunyas. 21st İstanbul Pride March was carried out in Şişli with enthusiasm.
Photograph: Mertcan Bükülmez
Taksim and the surrounding area were closed completely by the police in the morning hours just as they did during 9th Trans Pride March held on last week. Despite the police blockage went on day along til Mecidiyeköy, 21st İstanbul LGBTI+ Pride March was carried out in Şişli.
This year, İstanbul LGBTI+ Pride Week Committee took the 21st İstanbul LGBTI+ Pride March on various streets, after reading the press statement in Nişantaşı. Lubunyas marched to Beşiktaş until the police realized what was going on..
The police detained LGBTI+ right defenders, who were dispersed upon the call of the march committee. Blockading the journalists covering the march, the police also attacked people sitting in cafes, and detained everyone who has something in rainbow color on.
Unabated police also threatened the shopkeepers in the neighborhood, who reacted against the violence, with detention.
The number of people, who were detained completely unlawfully during the march despite no official ban order, has reached 60.
Green Left Party MPs Özgül Saki and Kezban Konukçu also participated in the march.
“You can’t deal with queers!”
Full text of the 21st İstanbul Pride March press statement is as follows:
“This year, under the theme of 'We are transitioning,' we are here in the spaces you tried to push us away from. Those who even banned our tea gatherings have forgotten one thing: We have always been here, one morning on the Haliç Bridge, one night on the Bosphorus Bridge, suddenly in Harbiye.
We carry the anger of the lubunya (queers) who have been subjected to torture by the state and its law enforcement agencies, and we declare that our anger will burn you. We will not leave our spaces; you will get used to us. Today, despite all your prohibitions and against your wishes, we are still here. We announce loudly that every step we take is an act of pride.
We witnessed during the earthquake that affected Turkey, Kurdistan, and Syria on February 6 that queers are being isolated even in disaster areas through the intervention of the state. We do not recognize your fascist ideologies, the racism, homophobia, and transphobia you try to deepen, or your attempts to remove LGBTI+s from public spaces through fear tactics. We are returning to the spaces you tried to exploit with your profit-driven politics. Against the politics of hatred in Turkey and Kurdistan, with every breath we take, we shout again: we are returning , we are here, and we are not leaving.
After the elections, we saw once again that we were targeted in the balcony speech. We reject this politics of hatred and denial. Despite all the prohibitions, criminalizations, pressures, and attempts to suppress us, we will continue to advocate for a humane life for everyone and persist in democratic living. We draw this determination not only from our own tradition but also from the Saturday Mothers who are arrested with reversed handcuffs in Galatasaray Square every week and the resistance on Ülker Street.
Alongside the systematic attacks by the government against LGBTI+ people, Kurds, women, refugees, sex workers, and workers, our lives are being criminalized by the ruling alliance. To those who withdrew from the Istanbul Convention and criminalized us overnight, we say: We will never submit! We will not give up our lives, our existence!
From the highest level to the lowest level of the state, you targeted us. But today, we are STILL HERE. You couldn't handle us, and you won't be able to.
YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH QUEERS!”
Tags: human rights
