At least 23 LGBTI rights defenders, including board and oversight committee members of Türkiye’s foremost LGBTI rights organization KAOS GL, Janset Kalan, Nedime Erdoğan, Umut Derin and Selin Berghan, and journalist, Tuğba Tekerek, have been detained alongside more than 100 people in a police operation targeting LGBTI people and organizations that began on 12 September. The five named individuals have been remanded in pretrial detention in Ankara’s Sincan prison on charges of ‘obscenity’ and ‘violating the Law on Associations.’ The LGBTI rights defenders and journalist are being deprived of their liberty solely for exercising their human rights and must be released immediately and unconditionally.
