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.
Muamma LGBTI+ Association: The simultaneous operations launched against the LGBTI+ movement and civil society organizations are the most blatant manifestation of the systematic violence and politics of hatred aimed at intimidating us. We are the people whose rights have been directly violated, whose doors have been broken down, and whose living spaces are being deliberately restricted. This attack is not only against a few organizations; it targets our collective determination to build a life based on equality and freedom.
Renkli Güvercin: The systematic policies of discrimination and punishment carried out in the name of the “Year of the Family” must also come to an immediate end. We will not see better days unless all members of society can live together in peace. That is why we call on all forces of social opposition to join the struggle together!
Turkish Medical Association Women’s Committee (TTB Kadın): While women and LGBTI+ people face the risk of gender-based violence, hate speech, injury and murder every day, those who fail to enforce protection orders and those who fail to allocate budgets for shelters and security measures are attempting to criminalize LGBTI+ rights advocacy overnight and without any legal basis. This attempt to effectively “create a crime” that has no basis in law, and the targeting of human rights defenders, are unacceptable.
Ankara Bar Association LGBTI+ Rights Center: As the Ankara Bar Association LGBTI+ Rights Center, we will continue to monitor the rights of those in custody and ensure that our colleagues can carry out their duty to provide legal defense without facing any obstacles.
ALİKEV: We stand with organizations, activists and human rights defenders working in the fields of LGBTI+ and HIV rights in the face of interventions targeting freedom of expression and freedom of association. An equal, free life without discrimination is everyone’s right. We will continue to strengthen solidarity.
Istanbul Bar Association Human Rights Center LGBTI+ Working Group: Following the blocking of access to the social media accounts and websites of numerous LGBTI+ organizations, activists and human rights defenders on September 12, raids were carried out from the late hours of the night onwards on LGBTI+ organizations’ offices and the homes of organization executives and activists in different provinces, and numerous people were detained. The blocking of digital spaces, raids on physical spaces, and deprivation of people’s liberty cannot be regarded as independent judicial procedures. These are interventions that target the LGBTI+ movement’s communication, organizing and human rights advocacy as a whole.
“We stand together against hatred and discrimination!”
DSİP: We call on all labor organizations, pro-democracy forces, human rights defenders, workers and oppressed people to stand together around LGBTI+ people. You are not alone, lubunya!
Human Rights School: We stand with LGBTI+ rights defenders whose freedoms of expression and association have been violated! We stand together against hatred and discrimination!
Istanbul Pride: If there is “immorality” of the kind they attribute to us, then it should be sought in a system that protects perpetrators who murder women through impunity, shields those responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in the earthquake with token sentences, buries dogs alive, turns a blind eye to the deaths of children in vocational training programs (MESEM), and even attacks the funerals of Kurds.
İhsan Eliaçık: They do not touch those who are like them or who obey them, even when allegations of bribery, prostitution, money laundering, proceeds of crime and receiving foreign funding against them have become widespread. I ask once again: Why are Menzil, İsmailağa, Erenköy, TÜRGEV, İlim Yayma, Ensar, Hakyol, Cengiz, Limak, Kalyon, Kolin, Makyol, and others never touched? I am not saying that these entities have committed crimes. Why are they not being investigated? Forget about dawn raids—why are they not even called in and asked to respond to the allegations against them? All of this shows that the state takes sides based on gender and sexual orientation just as it does based on religion, sect, race, ethnicity, social group and political affiliation. It marginalizes those who are different, subjects them to pressure and moves toward eliminating them.
Ayrıntı Publishing: Turning the discourse of protecting children and the family into a tool for stigmatizing the existence of LGBTI+ people, their legitimate right to organize, and their struggle for equality is contrary to human dignity, social peace and democracy. Presenting the lawful activities of rights-based associations as criminal acts is a direct intervention in freedom of association and freedom of expression.
Antakya Women Together Are Strong: We stand with LGBTI+ people in the face of these attacks on their right to organize and to exist; we will continue our struggle for equality and freedom together.
ODTÜ Alumni Association: The operations appear to be targeting LGBTI+ individuals and organizations as a result of the recent rise in hate speech and targeting. We cannot accept mindsets and interventions that categorically reject the existence of different identities in society. We condemn hate speech, discrimination and the targeting of LGBTI+ people.
HAK Initiative: The activities, publications or rights advocated for by an association cannot, on their own, constitute grounds for suspicion of a crime. Interventions such as searches, detentions, seizures and access blocks must be based on concrete grounds; assessed separately for each person and organization; and proportionate. These measures raise serious concerns with regard to the constitutional guarantees of liberty and security of person, freedom of expression and of the press, freedom of association, and the principle of equality. Defending the rights of LGBTI+ people and organizing in this field are legitimate civil society activities.
Polen Ecology Collective: Today, the entire democratic public must strengthen solidarity with LGBTI+ associations and groups, both on social media and in the streets. Our struggles for life are interconnected; we will strengthen our common struggle together!
Halkevci Women: Do whatever you want—you will not be able to prevent our existence, our colors or our struggle for freedom! In the face of the Palace government’s politics of hatred, we will strengthen our struggle for our dignity and our lives under the same rainbow! Release our friends who have been detained immediately! We will continue to defend life and the right to organize in the face of these attacks on LGBTI+ people and the LGBTI+ movement. Release those detained immediately!
Özgürlükçü Gençlik: The family structure sanctified by the male-dominated government is clear: it protects women murderers and child abusers. Every year, dozens of women, children and young people are subjected to systematic violence and killed within their families.
DİSK Social-İş: We know that the attacks targeting those who defend the right to life, trade union rights and democratic rights, and all those who defend contemporary democratic values that are disliked by a minority group, are not isolated incidents. We also know that attempts to suppress and intimidate LGBTI+ people in their struggle for life will fail.
Lawyers for Democracy: The fundamental duty of the state is not to control citizens’ ways of life or arbitrarily interfere with human rights advocacy; it is to fully protect the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. Accordingly, all citizens who have been detained must be released immediately, and these operations, which are being carried out for political motives and arbitrary reasons, must end immediately.
İzmir Contemporary Lawyers Group: Keep your hands off LGBTI+ people and release our citizens immediately! We will continue our struggle until LGBTI+ people can enjoy a free, equal and just life.
UN Special Rapporteur Andrea Bolaños Vargas: I am deeply concerned by reports of mass raids and detentions targeting LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders across Türkiye, as well as searches of LGBTIQ+ organizations and the seizure of digital equipment. I call on the authorities to ensure the immediate release of everyone detained for legitimate human rights activities and to guarantee that LGBTIQ+ rights defenders and organizations can exercise their rights without being criminalized, intimidated or subjected to reprisals.
Joint statement by 114 women’s organizations: As women’s organizations, we stand in solidarity with the LGBTI+ movement and will not give up our common struggle against patriarchal and authoritarian policies!
Aralık Feminist Collective: We ask: If it is a crime for LGBTI+ associations to receive funding from organizations abroad on the grounds that they “threaten the family,” why do ministries receive foreign funding?
Barışa İhtiyacım Var Women’s Initiative: As the Barışa İhtiyacım Var Women’s Initiative, we stand with LGBTI+ organizations in the face of this attack. At a time when peace is being discussed despite all its difficulties and democracy is an essential demand for everyone, we believe that this path, once again built on the creation of an enemy and targeting LGBTI+ people, can only be overcome through much broader solidarity and standing together. We therefore call on all sections of society and the public not to remain silent. Release those detained immediately, and put an end to this aggressive approach targeting the existence, visibility and organizing of LGBTI+ people!
Human Rights Defenders Solidarity Network: Defending human rights and LGBTI+ rights is not a crime. Our friends with whom we are engaged in the struggle for rights must be released immediately and unconditionally, and all pressure, targeting and interventions aimed at preventing LGBTI+ people from existing, exercising their freedom of association and carrying out human rights advocacy activities must end immediately. We stand with human rights defenders.
Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni: We will not take a single step back from defending civil rights in the face of attacks against LGBTI+ people in Türkiye and around the world. Barcelona will always stand with LGBTI+ people.
United Metal-İş Women’s Commission: These policies of repression, carried out under the guise of “family” and “protecting children,” are part of a process of criminalization aimed at depriving LGBTI+ people of their rights to live as equal citizens, to organize, to exercise freedom of expression and to defend their rights. People’s sexual orientations, gender identities and existence are not crimes. Defending human rights is not a crime. Organizing, expressing oneself, standing in solidarity and demanding rights are not crimes. As the United Metal-İş Women’s Commission, we demand the immediate and unconditional release of all detained rights defenders and guarantees for freedom of expression, association and peaceful protest.
Patikara Association: As Patikara, we reject attacks against human rights defenders. Being LGBTI+, forming an association and defending rights are not crimes. Release our association member Damla Umut Uzun and all human rights defenders immediately.
ACT/ART: The targeting of LGBTI+ organizations and activists in operations carried out under the name “My Family is Safe” in numerous cities since the night of September 13, as well as the ongoing judicial pressure against LGBTI+ artists, are the result of a politics of hatred. Disregard for freedom of association, failure to protect freedom of expression, and statements by public authorities that suspend the prohibition of discrimination undermine legal certainty.
EŞİK: Being LGBTI+, forming an association and defending fundamental human rights are not crimes. Receiving donations or funding while carrying out advocacy activities is not a crime either. Associations’ receipt of funding from abroad is regulated by law and subject to state oversight. These unlawful operations directly undermine freedom of expression and freedom of association.
Documentarist: Operations, censorship and criminalization targeting LGBTI+ people are unacceptable! The existence, organizing and rights struggles of LGBTI+ people cannot be obstructed.
EMEP: The government, which drives workers into poverty and children into insecurity, targets LGBTI+ people through the discourse of the “sacred family” in order to conceal the poverty for which it is responsible. There is no alternative to struggling against government policies that leave children to workplace deaths in MESEM programs and to abuse in religious orders and communities.
Human Rights Foundation of Türkiye (TİHV): We call on the political authorities to immediately end the unacceptable repression targeting the existence and freedoms of expression, assembly and association of LGBTI+ people. All those detained must be released immediately; access blocks imposed on the websites and social media accounts of LGBTI+ organizations and activists must be lifted immediately; and stigmatization and arbitrary accusations must end immediately.
HEVİ LGBTI+: As part of this smear campaign, the work we carry out to advance human rights and LGBTI+ rights in Türkiye, particularly for LGBTI+ people, as well as donations made to our association to enable us to continue these activities, are being presented to the public as though they were criminal acts.
STGM: We are closely monitoring the raids targeting LGBTI+ organizations and the detention of association executives as part of coordinated operations carried out in numerous cities, particularly Ankara and Istanbul, on the night of Saturday, September 12.
Peace Initiative for Children: Defending the rights of LGBTI+ people and their freedoms of association and expression, and standing in solidarity against discrimination and human rights violations, are not crimes. Release immediately and unconditionally those detained in the operations targeting LGBTI+ associations on September 12, as well as all our friends, including child rights defenders, who were detained yesterday for exercising their right to peaceful assembly in front of Çağlayan Courthouse.
Tags: human rights, women, media, arts and culture, life, family, lgbti
