In the spring of 2026 the Turkish government announced the start of its “Decade of the Family” a ten-year plan aimed at boosting birth rates and reinforcing traditional household structures. Within weeks, police operations against venues and private homes linked to the LGBTQ community exploded, marking the most extensive wave of arrests since the early 2000s.
On a single weekend, law-enforcement agents executed search warrants in 15 provinces, naming 162 individuals, nine organisations and 13 businesses. More than 200 people were initially taken into custody, with the legal rights collective Lawyers for Justice (AIH) confirming that roughly 110 remained detained after the first day. Courts in Ankara, İzmir, Mersin and Aydın subsequently ordered 62 detainees to remain in pre-trial jail, while an Istanbul tribunal added another 20, pushing the confirmed total of people behind bars to at least 82.
Detentions, court orders and media suppression in Turkey
Numbers and profiles of those held
Among the first group sentenced by the Ankara court were seven members of Kaos GL, a leading lgbtq rights organisation, five transgender individuals, and a journalist covering the raids. Mersin prosecutors handed down sentences for 28 more detainees, and the remaining 29 cases were slated for an Istanbul hearing. The crackdown did not spare the press: a reporter from the left-leaning BirGun daily and a correspondent for Germany’s ARD were both arrested while documenting street protests.
Digital repression and public statements
Authorities also moved to silence online voices, disabling dozens of social-media accounts belonging to NGOs such as the Media and Law Studies Association, Amnesty International Turkey, and the newspaper Evrensel. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly labelled the LGBTQ movement as a “deviant” group of “perverts,” while Justice Minister Akın Gürlek defended the operation as a necessary shield for “children and the institution of the family.”
European envoys and human-rights groups condemn the raids
Diplomats from France, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Iceland issued a joint statement on Thursday, describing the post-September-12 operations as “deeply troubling” and urging Turkey to honour freedom of assembly, association and expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Parliament rapporteur, Nacho Sánchez Amor, called the arrests a “shocking escalation of repression” that threatens to drive the country down a dark path.
Human Rights Watch’s Turkey director, Emma Sinclair-Webb, noted that the authorities were conflating LGBTQ activism with drug- and prostitution-related investigations, a tactic aimed at tarnishing the reputation of civil-society groups. The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded the immediate release of journalist Tuğba Tekerek, whose 2024 article about LGBTQ voters in Georgia had become a pretext for prosecution. Hundreds of academics, including Judith Butler and Thomas Piketty, signed an open letter urging the release of all detainees and the removal of online censorship.
Indonesia’s parallel anti-LGBTQ policy and police raids
Across the region, Indonesia has classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of its top non-military security threats. The policy, championed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, has spurred systematic surveillance, raids of private gatherings, and the development of school curricula designed to “prevent” LGBTQ influence from the 2026/27 academic year onward.
ILGA Asia, the regional arm of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, warned that this framing legitimises discrimination and enables police actions such as the October 2025 arrest of 34 men accused of hosting a “gay sex party” in a Surabaya hotel. Earlier in 2025, raids in South Jakarta and Bogor resulted in the detention of 56 and 75 people respectively, while a June 2026 investigation targeted five online groups suspected of facilitating LGBTQ networking.
Human Rights Watch has documented at least 94 cases of violence against LGBTQ individuals between 2024 and 2025, including mob attacks on transgender women in Bogor. Although the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ minister, Nasaruddin Umar, publicly urged citizens to avoid vigilante justice, the law still permits provincial and municipal governments to enact anti-LGBTQ ordinances, of which more than 45 remain active.
The convergence of Turkey’s family-centric crackdown and Indonesia’s security-framed anti-LGBTQ measures illustrates a broader regional trend: governments are increasingly invoking child-protection rhetoric to justify sweeping violations of human rights. International bodies, from the European Union to UN human-rights mechanisms, continue to issue condemnations, but concrete policy reversals remain elusive.
