Police Maltreatment Directed Towards Gay Venues in Istanbul

19/06/2007 | Writer: KAOS GL

June 18, 2007

On the night of June 17, Saturday, Turkish police has raided a gay bar in Taksim area. Gay men were forced to leave the place with the threat of pepper gas and batons and some of them were harassed physically and maltreated.

During the incident that took place on Saturday night around 2:30 am at the gay bar called "Tekyon", the police went into the bar and yelled at the customers in a very rude fashion, used words like "out!", "clear the area!", "leave ulan!" (a Turkish insult word). As the attitude was outrageous, a part of the crowd wanted to show a reaction but the police attacked them with pepper gas and batons.

Bar owners commented: "Police has raided the bar without showing any particular reason and they were harsh and homophobic. There couldn
Tags: human rights