13/09/2026 | Writer: Kaos GL
Politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and civil society organizations have spoken out against the “My Family Is Safe” operation targeting LGBTI+ organizations and activists in Turkey. The statements called for an end to the detentions.
Photo: Ali Dinç / csgorselarsiv.org
Reactions continue to pour in over the “My Family Is Safe” operation targeting LGBTI+ organizations and activists in Turkey. Politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and civil society organizations have spoken out against the detentions, saying the operation targets LGBTI+ people’s rights to life and freedom of association under the guise of “protecting the family”. The statements called for the immediate release of those detained.
EMEP MP Sevda Karaca: They cannot cover up the poverty, violence and decay they themselves have created by demonizing LGBTI+ people. Defending LGBTI+ people’s right to life and freedom of association means defending everyone’s rights and freedoms in this country. We will not allow the Palace’s agenda of demagoguery and hate, nor its policies of isolation and annihilation! Against hate politics, repression and the seizure of the right to organize; we will continue to defend the right to life, equality, constitutional freedoms and freedom of association side by side, together and without fear. The detainees must be released immediately. Get off the backs of LGBTI+ organizations and media already!
Özgül Saki: Keep your family to yourselves. Your hostile understanding of morality will not decide how anyone lives, who stands alongside whom, or who gets to organize. We do not accept your targeting of LGBTI+ people, the criminalization of spaces of organizing, or the detention of those who oppose these policies.
TİP LGBTI+ Bureau: These operations carried out by the Ministry of Justice under the name ‘My Family Is Safe’ aim to put pressure on organizations that stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable and most targeted groups in society. We reject the government’s attempts to turn LGBTI+ rights advocacy into a criminal category overnight and these arbitrary decisions. It must be clear: as long as you govern this country with these policies, no one is safe. We will not stop defending our legal rights, freedom of association and our determination to stand together. The pressure on all our friends, comrades and human rights defenders targeted by these decisions must end immediately!
DEM Party Mersin MP Perihan Koca: The ‘My Family Is Safe’ operation targeting LGBTI+ organizations and activists in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Aydın and Mersin is not an ordinary operation. It is a new threshold in the institutionalization of fascism. Because the fascist regime is marked by hostility toward women and LGBTI+ people at its very core.
DEM Party Women’s Assembly: We do not accept the detentions, raids, seizures and access blocks targeting LGBTI+ organizations, human rights defenders and digital media outlets. The operation named ‘My Family Is Safe’ is, as its name suggests, an operation to impose control over society. It is clear evidence that monist and sexist policies continue to be pursued insistently. Women are subjected to violence and murdered every day within the so-called ‘safe’ family. Different sexual identities are not a security problem for this country, families or society. The real security problem is the violence, impunity and discrimination that threaten the lives of women and LGBTI+ people. You cannot keep society safe by silencing human rights defenders, fueling hate crimes, blocking publications and targeting freedom of association.
Professor of Constitutional Law Şule Özsoy Boyunsuz: Repression does not eliminate an innate orientation. This does not happen because someone imitates others; this is how they are created. Persecution and repression do not protect the family. Fascism is descending like a dark night upon human rights and freedoms.
Istanbul Bar Association Board Member, lawyer Yelda Koçak: Neither existing nor defending the rights of one’s existence is a crime. Let me put it even more clearly and simply: I stand for human rights. LGBTI+ rights are human rights.
Journalist Özlem Akarsu Çelik: What kind of hate is this! First, the social media accounts of LGBTI+ organizations and activists were blocked, and then came the police operation… We have witnessed the struggle of all our friends at KAOS GL, including its executives and staff. You cannot frighten them with this repression; you cannot ban existence! LGBTI+ rights are human rights…
Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği (ÇHD) Istanbul Branch: Members serving on the executive and supervisory boards of LGBTI+ organizations were detained in house raids. Association offices are being raided. We stand with LGBTI+ people against attacks that seize freedom of association through hateful, moralistic and family-centered policies!
“They are trying to strike at existence”
Lawyer and human rights defender Eren Keskin: And on the anniversary of September 12, no less! They are trying to strike at existence. Existence cannot be prevented. The Turkish state is acting in clear violation of the international conventions it has signed.
HDK Women’s Assemblies: The struggle for existence is an inseparable part of the struggle for equal citizenship and a democratic society. We will continue to defend rights and freedoms together against those seeking to roll back this struggle through repression, bans and detentions.
UMUT-SEN: We see these attacks, carried out under the claim of protecting children and families by declaring the existence of LGBTI+ people obscene, as primarily an attempt to make LGBTI+ children and families invisible, while imposing a form of family in which violence against women and LGBTI+ people is normalized. We condemn these attacks on LGBTI+ people’s spaces for socializing, organizing and ultimately existing. We demand the immediate release of those detained.
ESP: The state seeks to control the lives, bodies and freedoms of women and LGBTI+ people in the name of ‘the family.’ The attack carried out against KAOS GL is not targeting merely an association; it is targeting the existence, rights and freedoms of LGBTI+ people. We will not remain silent in the face of this attack and will defend an equal and free life against the authoritarian family model. Release the detainees immediately! KAOS GL is not alone! LGBTI+ people are not alone!
İHD Ankara Branch: Such practices targeting the existence, voice and struggle of LGBTI+ people threaten not only the association concerned, but also the democratic social order and fundamental rights. Human rights advocacy is not a crime. The pressure placed on civil society organizations shows that the law is being instrumentalized and that the rights-based sphere is being narrowed. Freedom of association and freedom of expression, guaranteed by national and international human rights conventions, apply to everyone. LGBTI+ people’s rights are an integral part of human rights and cannot be targeted on any grounds.
SGDF: We stand with KAOS GL! The KAOS GL association was raided and numerous people were detained. The male-dominated, heterosexist system is attacking the existence and organization of LGBTI+ people. This attack is against all of us. Our dignity is greater than your hate and your attacks. Release the detainees.
Özgür Genç Kadın: You cannot conceal your policies that murder women, children and LGBTI+ people and protect and acquit perpetrators behind the rhetoric of the ‘sacred family.’ We will not allow you to criminalize the existence of LGBTI+ people by invoking ‘obscenity’ and claiming to ‘protect the family.’
Trans Pride Istanbul: The targets are not only our spaces or organizations; they are the will of LGBTI+ people to organize, stand in solidarity, and live together. They are trying to make us invisible, dismantle our organizing, shut down our spaces, and criminalize our solidarity. They label LGBTI+ people coming together as “obscenity,” organizing as a “crime,” and our very existence as “immorality.” Enough already.
Diyarbakır Bar Association LGBTI+ Rights Commission: The operations carried out in 15 provinces, centered in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Aydın and Mersin, under the name “Ailem Güvende” (“My Family Is Safe”) on the anniversary of the September 12 coup, targeting civil society organizations, human rights defenders and LGBTI+ people themselves, are an attack on the principle of the rule of law.
Yeni Party MP Gökçe Gökçen: The “foreign agent” law did not pass; neither did the law on “encouraging homosexuality” (!). There was a reason they did not pass. A formula had not yet been found for a law that would appear not to be outside the law, would not expose the government’s contradictions, and would not lead to questions about funding received by its own foundations from abroad or cause problems when they met with other states. But now, a law that does not exist is being enforced.
Sara Collective: The legacy of September 12: queer people in the crosshairs! Queer activists and organizations are being detained. The “My Family Is Safe” operation is an admission of the state’s attack on queer people. You cannot tear us away from our identities. We will resist with our colors and our freedom. We are rebuilding the queer front!
Lawyers for Justice: As Lawyers for Justice, we announce to the public that we are closely monitoring the detention processes and will follow the legal proceedings. Your repression cannot silence us. Organizing is not a crime!
Social Freedom Party: This is an outright attack on the existence, organizing, and right to speak of LGBTI+ people. Release those detained immediately! End the attacks against LGBTI+ people!
Freedom for Lawyers Association: Defending LGBTI+ rights is not a crime. On the contrary, it is a requirement of a democratic society. The duty of a democratic society is not to suppress human rights defenders and organized communities, but to guarantee fundamental rights and freedoms. The investigations must be terminated, those detained must be released immediately, and unlawful detention and practices of repression must end.
Mersin Women’s Platform: As the Mersin Women’s Platform, we do not accept the detention, censorship and repression targeting LGBTI+ organizations and human rights defenders. Our friends who have been detained must be released immediately! End the repression and censorship targeting LGBTI+ organizations!
DİSK Press-Workers Union: These decisions clearly violate the freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and right to organize guaranteed by the Constitution. Access blocks and detentions are systematic tools of repression aimed at silencing LGBTI+ people, rendering their existence invisible, and excluding them from public life. In a democratic society, no identity, human rights defender, or media outlet can be punished with access blocks, detention or imprisonment because of their views or identity. We call on all democratic mass organizations, trade unions, professional organizations, and human rights defenders to join the common struggle against this attack. We will not be silent; do not be silent. We will continue to defend our rights and freedoms.
LGBTI+ Initiative for Peace: Through the operations carried out under the name ‘Family Is Safe,’ LGBTI+ people are being positioned against the family. In the construction of fascism, a ‘desirable’ family and ‘desirable’ citizens are being designed in accordance with cisheteropatriarchy. We stand against your family structure in which women, children, and LGBTI+ people are murdered and subjected to abuse.
Human Rights Defenders Solidarity Network: This approach aims to discredit LGBTI+ organizations and restrict freedom of association, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, laws, and binding international conventions to which Türkiye is a party. Defending human rights and LGBTI+ rights is not a crime. Our friends with whom we are engaged in a common struggle for rights must be released immediately and unconditionally, and all forms of pressure, targeting, and interference aimed at preventing LGBTI+ people from existing, exercising their freedom of association, and engaging in human rights advocacy must end immediately. We stand with human rights defenders.
TİP MP Sera Kadıgil: Your only concern is creating new enemies and opening new fronts while blindly carrying out the agenda of the international darkness you are part of, and, to that end, targeting a section of the population simply because of their sexual orientation and gender identities. Your concern is leaving not a single organized force in the opposition camp.
LGBTİ+ organizations’ joint statement: Being LGBTİ+, forming an association, and defending human rights are not crimes. We are not a silent community waiting for others to speak about us. We speak about our own lives, document discrimination, criticize public policies, formulate demands, and organize. This is how we exercise our citizenship. A statement that speaks of preventing the “normalization” of our existence raises a political issue that goes beyond concrete allegations of criminal conduct.
GoFor: As GoFor, we stand in solidarity with our member organizations and LGBTİ+ organizations. Freedom of expression, freedom of association, and human rights advocacy are fundamental safeguards of democratic life. We will continue to fight for a civic space where young people and youth organizations can organize freely, make their voices heard, and defend their rights without fear.
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Tags: human rights, women, media, arts and culture, life, family, lgbti
