turkey: SOL Party Condemns Anti-LGBTQ+ Crackdown
SOL Party Statement (Member of EL)
Turkish authorities have launched a sweeping crackdown targeting LGBTQ+ organisations, activists and their supporters, with raids and detentions taking place across the country under the government’s “My Family Is Safe” operation. People protesting the raids, including socialists and LGBTQ+ rights supporters, have also been detained.
We stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in Türkiye, all those defending fundamental rights and freedoms, and everyone detained for raising their voices against repression and discrimination. We also express our solidarity with our comrades in SOL Party, our member organisation, whose activists have been among those detained while protesting the attacks.
Below we reproduce the full statement of SOL Party:
SOL Party Statement
#WeAreNotSafe
Either All Together Or None of Us
LGBTQ+ people have become the new target of the reactionary attacks fuelled by those in power. Dozens of people have been detained under the guise of the ‘My Family Is Safe’ campaign. Today, a new crackdown targeting socialists has taken place.
No one’s identity, sexual orientation or beliefs can be considered a crime. Yet the government is carrying out new operations every day, criminalising one person’s identity today, another’s sexual orientation tomorrow, and yet another’s beliefs the day after.
The government is attempting to silence and eradicate us one by one by tearing different sections of society apart and isolating them from one another.
No single attack can be considered separately from this reactionary siege aimed at silencing the whole of society.
None of us is ‘safe’ until we have freed our country from this reactionary fascism.
Either we will be freed together, or none of us will be.
We call on you to stand up for one another, to strengthen our solidarity and to reinforce our unity.
Those detained must be released immediately!
SOL Party Türkiye
“We are being detained under siege in Ankara!”
“Because we were protesting against the raids targeting LGBTQ+ people, a large number of our friends in Ankara – six of whom are from the Sol Feminist Movement – have been unlawfully detained amid police violence.
Release our friends!”
SOL Party Türkiye
Videos from SOL Party
Watch the first video on Instagram
Watch the second video on Instagram
Context
Europe must recover from this war fever, stop capitalizing on a climate of fear, and make way for a perspective of peace and The crackdown is part of a wider operation targeting LGBTQ+ people, organisations and their supporters across Türkiye. Further information is available from Reuters and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
Sources:
Reuters, 15 September 2026 – Turkey jails 31 in LGBTQ+ crackdown, detains 126 protesters
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, 15 September 2026 – Türkiye: Authorities should refrain from restricting the human rights of LGBTI civil society