Turkey’s answer to gay pride parade: tear gas
‘ Terrorized’ by the state and Islamic groups
• Turkish police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators who gathered Sunday for a gay Pride rally in Istanbul despite a government ban.
Dozens of participants advocating transgender rights assembled off Istiklal Street, a major commercial artery, some brandishing rainbow flags. Police called on them to disperse and prevented activists from marching or making statements. A couple of individuals were detained.
More than 300 policemen in anti- riot gear and backed by water cannons were deployed along the pedestrian thoroughfare and on side streets.
Istanbul’s governor had banned gay, lesbian and t ransgender i ndividuals from holding two annual parades this year, both Sunday’s seventh Trans Pride March and a broader LGBT Pride parade on June 26. His office cited security concerns as the basis for the ban.
In a statement that they were prevented from reading publicly, Trans Pride organizers said the community was “terrorized by both the state and puritanical groups.”
Turkish Is l amist and ultranationalist groups had threatened counterdemonstrations to stop the parade from taking place but didn’t turn up Sunday.
Sunday’s organizers, in their statement, also paid tribute to the victims of a bloody rampage at a gay night club in Orlando that left 49 people dead.
“We bow with respect to the memory of our friends massacred in Orlando and promise a world without homophobia and transphobia,” their statement read.
There were no signs of violence at gay Pride parades and events across the U. S. over the weekend.
People in wheelchairs, walking on stilts and riding rainbow- decorated motorcycles turned out, including participants in a Denver parade who carried posters of the names or faces of the victims who died in last weekend’s attack on a nightclub in Florida.
Security was t i ght at events. In Denver, authorities set up security fences, bag checks, and police rode Segway scooters and walked with bomb-sniffing dogs.
Other festivals and parades went ahead Saturday under increased security.
In Providence, R. I., extra police and fire personnel patrolled on foot. Several people donned capes made from rainbow flags. Others carried signs that read: “We stand with Orlando.”
In Syracuse, N.Y., marchers with colourful face paint, glitter and rainbow capes marched through the streets under a heavy police presence. In New Orleans, more than 100 people led off a gay Pride parade holding aloft hand- scrawled posters for LGBT rights and pictures of the Orlando nightclub victims pasted on pieces of coloured paper.