IPS Communication Foundation – Bianet

LGBTI+ organizations have expressed their concerns over President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s homophobic statements following his election victory.

With just weeks to go before May’s elections, police raid homes and offices in 21 cities, detaining journalists, lawyers, politicians, activists and artists.

After six people lost their lives and 81 others were wounded when a bomb planted under a bench detonated on a busy pedestrian street, authorities imposed several restrictions on news coverage and on social media.

Turkish Police have detained journalists working for two pro-Kurdish news outlets in raids across five cities in “terrorism-related” investigations.

Singer Gülşen was arrested on 25 August in relation to a joke she made in April about religious schools. She was released to house arrest on 29 August.

May 2022 alone has seen local administrations cancel concerts by Kurdish singer Aynur Doğan and musicians Metin and Kemal Kahraman, and the banning of ‘Don Kîxot’, a Kurdish adaptation of Cervantes’s ‘Don Quijote’.

Owner and managing editor of local newspaper ‘Kocaeli Ses’, Güngör Arslan was targeted in an armed attack at his office. A suspect has been arrested.

Detained journalist Sedef Kabaş faces a potential prison sentence of over 12 years for “insulting the president” and “insulting a public official”. Her first hearing is scheduled for 11 March 2022.