Turkey escalates LGBTQ crackdown with nationwide raids, detaining 63

On Sunday morning, Turkish police moved simultaneously across four major cities. Officers entered gay bars, raided the offices of LGBTQ rights organisations, and showed up at the homes of activists in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Mersin. By day's end, at least 63 people were in custody. The coordinated operation marked a sharp intensification of what has already been a decade of mounting pressure on Turkey's LGBTQ community.

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek announced the raids on social media, framing them as necessary action. Prosecutors, he said, had opened investigations into 162 suspects across nine associations and 13 businesses. The stated purpose was to "protect children, the institution of the family, and public order." The operation carried an official name—"My Family is Safe"—and Gurlek tied it directly to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's executive order declaring a "Decade of Family and Population," a policy designed to reverse Turkey's declining birthrate. In his post on X, Gurlek wrote that the state had a constitutional duty to shield families and children, and that no criminal organisation, abuse network, or illegal activity targeting minors or families would be permitted.

Kaos GL, one of the country's most prominent LGBTQ rights groups, saw its offices searched and its activists detained. The organisation reported that nearly 50 defenders of LGBTQ rights had been taken into custody or were now subject to legal proceedings involving interrogations or detention. Judicial authorities in Ankara accused Kaos GL specifically of publishing content they deemed obscene online—material they claimed was accessible to children. Days before the police raids began, the websites of multiple LGBTQ organisations had been blocked.

This crackdown did not emerge from nowhere. Turkish authorities banned Istanbul Pride in 2015, and every attempt to hold a gathering since then has been met with violent dispersal by police. Rights activists have watched the government's rhetoric harden and its restrictions tighten year after year. The Turkish Human Rights Association responded to Sunday's operation with a direct reframing: "The real name of this operation is not 'My Family is Safe'; it is state-led discrimination, politics of fear and the dismantling of civil society."

The international response was swift. Nacho Sanchez Amor, the European Parliament's rapporteur on Turkey, called the detentions "a shocking escalation in the repression" unfolding in the country. The language from Brussels reflected what observers have long documented—that Turkey's treatment of its LGBTQ population has moved beyond neglect or indifference into active, systematic suppression. The operation signals that the government intends to use the machinery of law enforcement, prosecution, and public rhetoric to make space for LGBTQ organising smaller and more dangerous. What happens to those 63 people in custody, and whether the detentions hold up under legal scrutiny, will shape what comes next for civil society in Turkey.