ISTANBUL (AP) — Dozens of individuals have been detained in central Istanbul after metropolis authorities banned an LGBTQ Satisfaction march, organizers stated Sunday.
Turkey’s largest metropolis has banned the march since 2015, however massive crowds nonetheless collect yearly to mark the top of Satisfaction Month. Organizers known as the ban illegal.
“We don’t quit, we’re not afraid! We are going to proceed our actions in protected locations and on-line,” the Istanbul LGBTI+ Satisfaction Week Committee stated on Twitter.
Kaos GL, a distinguished LGBTQ group, stated shortly earlier than the march’s 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) begin that police detained 52 folks had been detained. The Satisfaction Week Committee later stated greater than 100 had been arrested.
There was no fast phrase on the variety of arrests from the police or the governor’s workplace.
Photographs on social media confirmed folks being frisked and loaded onto buses, together with not less than one information photographer. Journalists’ union DISK Basin-Is alleged “many” have been crushed by police.
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Native residents banged pots and pans from their home windows and balconies in a present of assist for the marchers as a police helicopter circled overhead.
Steel fences and contours of riot officers cordoned off streets round Taksim Sq. and Istiklal Avenue within the Beyoglu district, the guts of the town’s procuring and tourism sectors, in addition to a standard gathering level for protesters.
Metro providers round Taksim Sq. have been shut down for hours forward of the march.
Turkey beforehand was one of many few Muslim-majority nations to permit Satisfaction marches. The primary was held in 2003, the yr after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s celebration got here to energy.
In recent times, the federal government has adopted a harsh method to public occasions by teams that don’t signify its religiously conservative views. Giant numbers of arrests and the usage of tear fuel and plastic pellets by police have accompanied Satisfaction occasions.
Counter-demonstrations by nationalists and Islamists, who declare the LGBTQ neighborhood is a hazard to “Turkish values,” have additionally threatened marchers.
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