International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) made a statement related to police attack during 13th Istanbul LGBTI Pride Parade and said that Turkish Government must respect and protect LGBTI people’s right to peaceful assembly.
IGLHRC in its statement mentioned that police disrupted LGBTI people’s press statement, journalists were detained and peaceful parade was attacked by police and perpetrators.
“The Turkish government has a responsibility to protect peaceful assembly, including the annual LGBTI pride parade,” said Jessica Stern, executive director of IGLHRC. “Instead, the police attacked peaceful marchers with water cannons, pepper spray, and plastic bullets. To add insult to injury, the government refuses to even acknowledge the violence of their actions.”
“The authorities in Turkey keep changing their story about what happened,” said Hossein Alizadeh, IGLHRC program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. “However, media reports about police only resorting to force after some demonstrators erected banners to protest the government indicate the real interest might very well have been to silence anti-government voices.”
It was stated by IGLHRC that the crackdown on the parade came weeks after the parliamentary election on June 7, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its decade-long majority in the Parliament and this was the first time in over a decade that the LGBTI community in Turkey was not allowed to carry out this annual Pride event, a tradition that started back in 2003. (ÇT/BD)
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