A prosecutor in Turkey on Friday called for up to three years in prison for seven students for allegedly hanging the Rainbow Flag in conjunction with an image of the Kaaba in Mecca, and thereby “inciting hatred”.
By linking Islam’s holiest site with the display of the LGBT movement, Islam is “insulted”, the prosecutor said, according to a report by the official Anadolu news agency.
After the turn of the year, there was a strong protest movement at Bogazici University because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (67) appointed a new university rector, thus interfering with the traditional autonomy rights of universities. The police stated in early February that they had discovered an image of the Kaaba surrounded by Rainbow flags on the university campus.
Two of the seven students were detained. The scheduled date for the trial is to be announced later. The university’s LGBT club has been forced to close.
It’ s ridiculous: while Erdogan accused the queer movement of not sharing “national values”, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu (51) even declared that LGBT people were “degenerate”.
Homosexuality is not forbidden in Turkey, unlike in many Muslim countries. However, members of the LGBTQ community are still heavily discriminated against in the country.