Turkey releases 106 protesters, jails more LGBTQ activists

Turkish police released more than 100 protesters who had been detained a day earlier for demonstrating against a major weekend crackdown on the LGBTQ community, legal rights activists and an AFP journalist said late Wednesday. 

All 106 had been detained outside an Istanbul courthouse on Tuesday where rights activists were to read out a statement denouncing sweeping raids targeting members and activists of the LGBTQ community.

The Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD) confirmed late Wednesday that all 106 had been freed, with most of the releases witnessed by an AFP correspondent.

Among them were two journalists, one from the left-leaning BirGun daily and another from Germany's ARD television, who were held while covering the protest, CHD and BirGun said.

Early on Sunday, Turkish police began raiding gay bars, nightclubs and the homes of activists and members of the LGBTQ community under a warrant naming 162 individuals, nine organisations and 13 companies in 15 provinces including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

According to Lawyers for Justice (AIH), 109 people were detained.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads an Islamo-conservative government, has described the LGBTQ community as a "deviant" movement of "perverts".

His justice minister defended the raids as a bid to protect "children and the institution of the family".

By Wednesday evening, courts in several cities had remanded in custody 81 of those rounded up on Sunday, according to Kaos GL, a leading LGBTQ rights group that was also targeted in Sunday's raids.

Another 33 people appeared in court in Istanbul on Wednesday, with a judge jailing 20 of them, Kaos GL said, indicating the other 13 were granted conditional release.

At least nine of those jailed represented LGBTQ organisations.

On Tuesday evening, an Ankara court had jailed 13 people, including seven from Kaos GL, five transgender people and a journalist. 

Another 28 were jailed in Mersin, the DHA news agency said.

Meanwhile, the access restrictions targeting the websites and social media accounts of LGBTQ associations, activists and rights groups that began on Saturday continued apace on Wednesday, Turkey's Freedom of Expression Association IFOD said on X.

The latest to be blocked were the accounts of several left-leaning journalists, a socialist news outlet and two umbrella associations representing women's organisations, it said.

In recent days, the Turkish authorities have blocked access to the accounts of lawyers, human rights defenders, the MLSA legal rights group, Amnesty International Turkey, Academics for Peace and Evrensel newspaper among others.

Although same-sex relations are legal in Turkey, hostility towards LGBTQ people remains widespread, with homophobia evident even at the highest levels of government.

Turkey's LGBTQ community has faced increasing pressure since the government declared 2026 to be the start of its "Decade of the Family".

The crackdown has drawn criticism from opposition parties and the European Union, with the European parliament's Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor describing the arrests as "a shocking escalation of repression".