Turkish University Student Threatened For Organising LGBT+ Rights Event
Nazli Ikra Öztay, a political sciences student at Ankara University in Turkey, has been threatened for organising an ‘LGBT+ rights struggle on campus’ lecture.
“I was confronted with a private message saying, ‘Delete that immoral message’,” she explained. She said a friend of hers received a similar message.
The worrying message that Nazli received read: “Delete that message and do not again make the (Whatsapp) group a grounds for your depravity again. We’ll never get used to it, and we’ll throw you off tall buildings.”
As ‘Gay Times’ report, the message is a reference to the way that terrorist organisation ISIS kills LGBTQ+ individuals, with the murders often filmed and published online.
The Mülkiye Women’s Solidarity defended Nazli, writing in a statement: “We remind you again; none of our female friends, the subject of the LGBTI + struggle, or our rights defender friend are alone. We are side by side and strong together against hate language and bullying!”
Nazli found the person who sent the message, a freshman political sciences student, and found that he was also a member of a gang who lived in Syria from “time to time.”
It is unknown whether the student faced any consequences.
Although homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, rights of the LGBT+ community are very limited. LGBT+ events are being continually banned and the country recently decided it would not take part in the Eurovision Song Contest due to LGBT+ contestants.
“As a public broadcaster we cannot broadcast live at 9pm, when children are watching, an Austrian with a beard and a skirt, who claims not to have a gender and says ‘I am a man and a woman at the same time’,” said Ibrahim Eren, who used to run the Radio and Television Corporation.
“There is some kind of confusion of mentality here… once this is corrected we will return to Eurovision.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
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Openly gay man has been nominated for office in Turkey
Turkish LGBT+ activist arrested without cause
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