While homosexuality is not illegal in the country per se, since 2015, officials in Turkey have done everything in their power to suppress pride demonstrations.
This past weekend, police arrested several individuals for participating in this year’s banned pride event.
Authorities had banned the event, with police increasing security and erecting barriers around key rallying points, such as Istanbul’s Taksim Square, and restricting subway service, according to France 24.
In spite of this, LGBTQ+ demonstrators gathered in neighborhoods across the city on Sunday in defiance of the ban, while the Istanbul Bar Association displayed a banner at its headquarters reading “LGBT is human rights.”
“My love, today isn’t over yet. In fact, we’re just getting started,” demonstrators chanted, according to France 24. “We’re not giving up. We’ll keep taking to the streets from every corner we’re in.”
Among the 50+ individuals taken into custody on Sunday was journalist Müberra Ünsal, a female journalist who holds a valid press card.
“Journalists covering the Istanbul Pride March faced unlawful interference,” the union writes in a June 28 Twitter post, noting that Ünsal was detained despite repeatedly identifying herself as press and showing her press card.
“LGBTİ+ individuals peacefully exercising their rights and freedoms, as well as this process being covered by journalists, is a requirement of democratic society principles,” the union writes. “Journalists’ news coverage is not a crime. Our colleagues must be released immediately!”
Sunday’s string of arrests came exactly one day after Turkish authorities ordered the closure of a gay bar in Istanbul in response to a campaign by Islamist groups claiming the bar’s owner had organized a stop in the port city by an LGBTQ+ cruise. The ship had been scheduled to dock in Istanbul on July 8.
Anti-LGBTQ+ President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the community repeatedly. Blaming the minority for Turkey’s low birth rate.
Back in October 2025, the Turkish government unveiled a package of proposed judicial reforms that would impose penalties targeting Turkey’s LGBTQ+ community and behavior deemed “contrary to biological sex and general morality.” The legislation was withdrawn the following month.
Despite the withdrawals of the proposed Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, In April of this year, 11 members of the Turkish rights group Young LGBTI+ were charged with “obscenity” and “violating the protection of the family” for posting images to social media that show same-sex couples kissing.
Pride celebrations have been banned since the earliest days of Erdoğan’s term in office. In 2022, police arrested nearly 400 people who had gathered in Taksim Square for a banned Pride march. This has not—and in the future very likely will not—stopped Turkish allies and LGBTQ+ citizens from celebrating gay pride.
