28/06/2024 | Writer: Oğulcan Özgenç
Nedime Erdoğan from the Rainbow Families Association shared the incident with KaosGL.org. Erdoğan said, “They claimed there were symbols on the bag. When I asked which symbols, they pointed to the rainbow colors.”
LGBTI+ rights activist Nedime Erdoğan, a member of the Rainbow Families Association (GALADER), was prevented by the police from entering the Parliament with her rainbow-themed bag when she went to visit Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Izmir MP Burcugül Çubuk. She was allowed to enter the Parliament only after her bag was confiscated.
Erdoğan, shared the incident with KaosGL.org.
Nedime Erdoğan stated that the police searched her bag in detail when she reached the final checkpoint where belongings are left at the entrance to the Parliament. Erdoğan recounted, “I had Kaos GL’s rainbow-themed small cloth bag inside my bag. They asked, ‘What’s in this bag?’ I told them it was the bag I use for shopping. Then they said it was not possible for them to allow the bag inside.”
Erdoğan mentioned that she had previously entered the Parliament with this same bag, saying, “When I told them that I had entered the Parliament with this purse before, they claimed it had escaped their notice. They said there were emblems and symbols on the bag. When I asked, ‘Which symbols?’ they pointed to the emblem of Kaos GL and the rainbow colors. I objected, but they did not listen to me. They said they could not allow them inside and took them on consignment. Additionally, they only gave me three of the GALADER business cards I had; they prevented me from bringing the rest of the business cards and the bag inside by taking them on consignment.”
Erdoğan added the following:
“They wouldn't let us in with our article, which was an advocacy document. When I told them that the deputy wanted it, I was able to bring it in.”
Tags: human rights
