Kaos GL Submits 2012 Hate Crime Report to European Institutions

Kaos GL prepared and announced its 2012 Hate Crime Report on the human rights violations of LGBTs in Turkey.

 

The reports starts with a brief summary of what 2012 looked liked for LGBT people: “In Turkey, 10 hate crimes were committed. 6 transgenders and 5 gays lost their lifes due to hate murders. 8 hate attacks were published online on kaosgl.org. We witnessed lynch attempts, torture, ill-treatments, domestic violence, harassment, rape and cyber attacks.”

 

The report has been submitted to the concerned institutions OSCE – Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, The Delegation of the European Union in Turkey, Director-General for Enlargement at the European Commission, European Commission’s Turkey Unit in Enlargement Section and ILGA-Europe.

 

The report has 5 parts, focusing mainly on hate murders, hate speeches and pending and concluded court cases. The introduction of the report follows as:

 

 

2012 has been a “difficult” year for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. In Turkey, 10 hate crimes were committed. 6 transgenders and 5 gays lost their lifes due to hate murders. 8 hate attacks were published online on kaosgl.org. We witnessed lynch attempts, torture, ill-treatments, domestic violence, harassment, rape and cyber attacks.

 

Under the heading “Discrimination” of the Report, 3 violations committed against the housing right of the transgender people were detected. In labour life, 2 people started a legal struggle since they were fired due to their sexual orientation. 4 people were not allowed to enter into a space and to receive service. Within the field of health care services, the Turkish Red Crescent claimed that HIV infected blood was obtained from a bisexual in the “HIV+ Blood” case. Discrimination took the stage as “official discourse” in 7 events such as the redefiniton of homosexuality for military service and many more.

 

As Kaos GL, we have been working to monitor and report the violations of human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals since 2006. Considering violations of human rights published since 2007, the same echo has been repeatedly heard. Ahmet Yıldız’s case is not closed yet. The murderers of Dilek İnce are not apprehended. Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ’s case was delivered to a legal expert. These court cases will be on the agenda of human rights movement in 2013 as well.

10 violations of right to life were registered as hate crimes. Widely speaking, human rights monitoring and reporting activities are performed by volunteer correspondents and through media-scanning. As a result, from time to time we lately receive the news or even sometimes are not even informed. The hate crime in Diyarbakır and the young gay who died after being forced to commit suicide in Adana are some examples from which we lately kept informed. We are aware of the violations of human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in many circles.

 

Therefore, this report does not sufficiently display the violations of LGBTs in Turkey. The whole real picture is invisible. The main reason is that LGBTs think they would be consistently violated while trying to gain access to justice due to violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, LGBTs cannot estimate how the legal methods they refer would influence their lives. This situation causes LGBTs to become defenseless and target against violations.

 

Some categories under the heading “Hate Crimes” are ones that we have just started to report. Kaosgl.org was hacked by religious groups following the 7th International Meeting Against Homophobia and Symposium Against Discriminations opens a new space for violations aimed at freedom of expression of LGBT people.

 

In 2012, LGBT people faced lynch attempts in Çandarlı and in Antalya. LGBTs were attacked by homophobic and transphobic motivations. The perpetrators claimed the victim was homosexual. There are two violations of right to life in this report, as follows: “I killed because he whistled” and “I was aroused as he touched my backside”. For a long time, we have underlined that “unjust provocation” abatement puts LGBT people in the line of fire, however, as long as the perpetrators are not punished, we will continue to become target.

 

We present this report as “2012 Report of Human Rights Violations Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”. Our problem with accessing the discriminations and violations committed against lesbians, bisexual women and trans men still remain valid. As Kaos GL, we find it crucially important to overcome this problem.

Parallel to this report, 2012 Human Rights Report of LGBT Refugees and 2012 Media Monitoring Report will be published. These three reports indicate the “visible” violations committed against “visible” LGBTs.