06/02/2024 | Writer: Selma Koçak
Yıldız Tar, the Editor-in-Chief of Kaos GL, and Abdullah, a volunteer from the SPoD Political Participation Unit, commented on hate speech in leaflets related to the local elections in a program on DW Haber.
Yıldız Tar, the Editor-in-Chief of Kaos GL, and Abdullah, a volunteer from the SPoD Political Participation Unit, commented on hate speech in leaflets related to the local elections in a program on DW Haber.
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Tar stated that the rise of hate speech in election manifestos is an operation of perception, which promotes LGBTI+ people as a marginalized group out of the society:
“’We will eliminate LGBTI+s from our city!’ means pogrom. How are you going to eliminate LGBTI+ from the city? What are you going to do, are you going to go and find people one by one, find people you suspect to be LGBTI+ or not and beat them and throw them out of the city? Are you going to kill them?
This (discourse) also makes LGBTI+ people feel lonely, it also leads to an increase in hate crimes and hate murders encouraging by the confidence that the court will have a policy of impunity if an LGBTI+ person is killed.
We are also aware of the AKP’s (Justice and Development Party) discussion of this issue in working groups at its congresses. The policy that it has adopted is clearly hostility and it has been organising the state in such a way that all of its institutions, from the top to the bottom, are involved in the hostility towards LGBTI+.”
And Abdullah pointed out that LGBTI+ people are under intense attack for their very existence in the public sphere, while opposition parties fail to respond:
“While LGBTI+ rights are being put as an agenda item, as an element of politics, especially by the extremist right-winged political parties, the opposition parties are not reacting against saying that this is an issue of the most basic human rights, somehow they are keeping silent about this issue.
At the moment we witness that LGBTI+ associations are more often faced auditions by the Ministry of Interior and related institutions. Moreover, some activities of associations are being banned. In the same way, student communities at the universities are being closed down. Pride Week activities have been banned for a couple of years. In fact, we witness that all efforts made in order to exist in public are being banned in pone way or another.”
Tags: human rights, media
