Istanbul police arrested about 20 people gathered in the city’s Taksim Square on Saturday to participate in the city’s annual LGBT pride event, which was once the largest such event in the Muslim world, Euro News reported on Sunday.
Under Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the event has been illegal since 2014.
“The Istanbul Governor’s Office had refused to authorise the march, citing the ‘protection of public peace and security, general health and morality,'” according to Euro News.
“The [Istanbul] Pride Week Committee said police fired rubber bullets and one reporter was beaten while being arrested,” the pan-European news agency added.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Saturday that “at least 25 people were detained” at the event, “including an AFP photographer.”
Riot gear-clad police blocked streets near Taksim Square and, at some points, fired tear gas “in an attempt to disperse marchers” at the event, the French news agency added.
The Canadian security firm Garda World issued the following security alert on June 26 warning that the Istanbul Pride event in Taksim Square was unauthorized by city government officials and therefore likely to draw the attention of local police:
Authorities have not granted permission for the event. Additional police will deploy to monitor proceedings and likely attempt to prevent gatherings; associated security measures will prompt localized disruptions in the surrounding area.
Continuing, Garda wrote:
Isolated clashes between police and activists are likely if demonstrators do not comply with police orders. At Pride demonstrations in previous years, security services have resorted to riot control measures, including tear gas and rubber bullets, to disperse activists.
Istanbul government officials have banned LGBT Pride events in the city “since 2014 when tens of thousands of people took part in a march through the city,” according to Euro News.
“Istanbul Pride used to be the largest event of its kind in the Muslim world, but has faced repeated state violence and arbitrary shutdowns under Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Breitbart News noted in July 2018 when reporting on the city’s fourth consecutive violent crackdown on the LGBT event since it was banned in 2014.
In an echo of AFP’s June 26 report, a photographer for the French news agency detailed in July 2018 how roughly “1,000 people gathered” near Istanbul’s Taksim Square before “police then warned activists to disperse and used rubber bullets against some who tried to access [the nearby] Istiklal Avenue,” Breitbart News relayed at the time.
Istanbul is the cultural and religious center of Turkey, which is a Muslim-majority nation. Nearly 99 percent of Turkey’s population follows Islam, a religion that teaches that “same-gender sex is a sin,” the Associated Press (AP) reported in 2018.
“Men having sex with each other should be punished, the Koran says, but it doesn’t say how — and it adds that they should be left alone if they repent,” the AP noted in its report.
An estimated 13 Muslim-majority countries punish proven acts of homosexuality with the death penalty.
“The death penalty instead comes from the Hadith, or accounts of the sayings of the [Islamic] Prophet Muhammad,” according to the AP. “The accounts differ on the method of killing, and some accounts give lesser penalties in some circumstances.”