Turkey arrests 162 in LGBTQ+ crackdown under 'family protection' campaign

Over a single weekend in mid-September, Turkish police fanned out across fifteen provinces and arrested at least 162 people. They raided gay bars and nightclubs. They searched the offices of six LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations. They seized drugs, weapons, smuggled alcohol, and digital equipment. They blocked access to dozens of websites and social media accounts run by rights groups and activists. The government called the operation "My Family is Safe."

Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek framed the raids as a constitutional obligation. The state, he said on social media, has a duty to protect families and children. Investigations had been prompted by accusations of prostitution and obscenity. Prosecutors in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Aydin, and Mersin coordinated the action, which touched nine associations and thirteen businesses. Authorities claimed they found evidence that children and minors were being "inappropriately swayed" on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity. One organization, Kaos GL, was accused of making posts containing obscenities accessible to minors.

The raids were not framed as random enforcement. They were explicitly tied to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "Decade of Family and Population," a government initiative designed to reverse Turkey's sharply declining birthrate. Erdogan, who has ruled as president since 2014 and served as prime minister for a decade before that, has been direct about where he places blame. He has called LGBTQ+ people "perverts" and attributed Turkey's demographic crisis to them. The government's stated aim in the raids was to ensure society does not view LGBTQ+ activity as "normal."

Yet the numbers tell a different story about what is actually happening in Turkey. Between 2013 and 2023, the country's total fertility rate fell from 2.11 children per woman to 1.51. That decline is real and substantial. But it mirrors the fertility rates of other developed nations. The causes, according to observers and economists, are structural and institutional—not ideological. Turkey's economy has been in chronic crisis. Inflation has surged. Housing prices have become unaffordable for ordinary families. Workplaces remain hostile to parents, particularly mothers. Childcare is scarce and expensive. Women are entering higher education and the workforce at higher rates than before. These are the conditions that lead people to delay having children or to have fewer of them. They are not the result of LGBTQ+ visibility.

Same-sex relations are not illegal in Turkey. Homophobia, however, is widespread and officially sanctioned. The weekend operation represents an escalation in a pattern: using the language of child protection and family values to justify targeting a minority group that the government has already decided to blame for problems it has not solved. Kaos GL, the Istanbul-based LGBTQ+ rights organization, documented not only the arrests but also the digital suppression—the blocking of websites and social media accounts that had nothing to do with the venues raided or the people arrested. The operation was coordinated across multiple provinces and multiple levels of government. It was not incidental. It was policy.

What happens next remains unclear. The 162 people arrested face judicial proceedings. The six organizations that were raided are now operating under the shadow of state scrutiny. The websites and accounts that were blocked may or may not be restored. Turkey's LGBTQ+ community, already navigating a hostile political environment, now faces a more aggressive enforcement apparatus. And the government continues to insist that the real problem is not inflation, not housing, not wages, not the conditions of work and family life—but the existence of people it has decided to call perverts.