Human rights violations against LGBT individuals in Turkey in 2008

The LGBT Rights Platform of Turkey has published a report on human rights violations against LGBT individuals committed by the police and civilians in 2008 (link here).

As a member of the LGBT Rights Platform, Lambdaistanbul LGBT Solidarity Association prepared 34 reports about the attacks of the police and civil people against LGBT individuals in 2008:

• 14 cases about police violence against LGBT individuals in public places such as streets, parks or bars
• 9 cases about police raid to transgender women’s houses and ill-treatment of the police there
• 8 cases about violence of civil people against LGBT individuals
• 1 case about the police who did not help a victim who was a transgender woman and who wanted to complain about the attack against her by two civil men
• 1 case about ill-treatment of military psychiatrists and psychologists against a gay man who wanted to take a medical report in order to not to make compulsory military service
• 1 case about discrimination against a transgender woman at a television program

The LGBT Rights Platform – a coalition of six LGBT organizations – regularly submits to various state-run human rights committees reports, and requests for investigations, of human rights violations against LGBT individuals. These requests are routinely met with indifference and the flimsiest of excuses as to why the abuses were justified. In addition, because the police are given automatic immunity by the courts, reprisal beatings and attacks are all too common; and freedom of association is often curtailed, often violently.

The member organizations of the LGBT Rights Platform have stated that they will continue their struggle to eliminate these human rights violations and are to be applauded for their strength, sense of purpose and unity.

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Previous related posts:

• Turkey: trials in connection with the murders of two trans women now under way (July 9, 2009)
• Unsafe haven: LGBT asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey (July 8, 2009)
• Turkey – new Chief of Police for Istanbul. Will this bring an end to the “undeclared war” against trans women? (June 15, 2009)
• Turkish policemen on trial for attack on trans woman (May 29, 2009)
• Turkey: another trans woman stabbed to death – UPDATE (May 29, 2009)
• Turkey: another trans woman stabbed to death (May 25, 2009)
• Turkish parliament questioned on trans safety (May 12, 2009)
• Lambda Istanbul granted permission to continue operating (May 7, 2009)
• Suspected murderer of trans rights activist arrested in Turkey (April 21, 2009)
• Every 15 days, another trans person is murdered in Turkey (April 14, 2009)
• The undeclared war against LGBTT people in Turkey continues (March 29, 2009)
• Another trans woman murdered in Turkey (March 14, 2009)
• Trans woman stabbed to death in Istanbul (March 12, 2009)
• Lambda Istanbul wins appeal against closure (January 28, 2009)
• Trans rights abuses in Turkey (November 29, 2008)