Europe 1 with AFP 9:44 a.m., June 27, 2022, modified at 9:48 a.m., June 27, 2022

Even before the rally began, riot police raided cafes and streets in the Cihangir neighborhood around the iconic Taksim Square, arresting those found there.

According to the count of the organizers of the march, nearly 400 people in total were apprehended in several waves.

Turkish police once again melted on Sunday on the LGBTQ + Pride March in Istanbul, banned by the authorities, ruthlessly arresting nearly 400 people, activists and journalists, including an AFP photographer.

Even before the rally began, riot police raided cafes and streets in the Cihangir neighborhood around the iconic Taksim Square, arresting those found there, AFP found.

"373 people were arrested. All (...) had been released on the morning of June 27," said the Turkish association for the defense of LGBTQ + rights Kaos GL.

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Some, including AFP photographer Bülent Kilic, were released shortly before 11 p.m. (8 p.m. GMT), more than six hours after their arrest.

But most of those arrested were still in the hands of the police, according to the organizers of the march and the association for the defense of LGBTQ + rights, Kaos LG.

Twelve people were also arrested in the city of Izmir (west), according to Kaos LG.

As every year now, the Pride March had been banned by the governor of the city, but hundreds of demonstrators waving rainbow flags gathered in the streets adjacent to Taksim Square, which is completely closed to the public.

"The Future is Queer"

Chanting "The future is queer!", "You will never be alone!"

or "We are here, we are queer, we will not go anywhere else!", the demonstrators then marched for a little over an hour in the steep streets of the Cihangir district, supported by residents posted at the windows.

"They try to ban us, to prevent us, to discriminate against us and even to kill us every minute of our existence," Diren, 22, told AFP. 

"But today is an opportunity to defend our rights, to shout that we exist: you will never be able to stop queers", adds Diren, using the term which designates any form of altersexuality and refutes the biological definition of gender.

According to several witnesses, the police tried to prevent the press from filming the arrests.

Bülent Kilic, an experienced and award-winning AFP photographer familiar with conflict zones, had already been arrested last year in the same circumstances.

On Twitter, the press defense organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) regretted that the Turkish authorities seem "to have gotten into the habit of arresting AFP photojournalist Bülent Kilic".

"Despite three convictions pronounced by the Constitutional Court in the last three years, the security forces continue to abuse and arbitrarily detain journalists. Unfortunately, the administration has become accustomed to disregarding the decisions of the Court or the law," added RSF representative Erol Onderoglu.

[1/2] RSF'den @ErolOnderoglu: İstanbul #OnurYürüyüşü'nü izleyen AFP fotomuhabiri #BülentKılıç'ı gözaltına almayı polis bir alışkanlık haline getirmişe benziyor.

Gazeteci geçen yıl da boğazına basılarak gözaltına alınmış, şiddet gazeteci örgütlerince Valilik önünde kınanmıştı.

pic.twitter.com/6f1OZmSzcF

— RSF Türkçe (@RSF_tr) June 26, 2022

A march gradually prohibited

Since a spectacular parade in 2014 of more than 100,000 people in Istanbul, the Turkish authorities have gradually banned the Pride March, citing security reasons.

On Friday, the European Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, called on "the Istanbul authorities to lift the ban in force on the Pride March and to guarantee the safety of peaceful demonstrators".

"The human rights of LGBT people in Turkey must be protected," she added, calling for "an end to (their) stigma".

Homosexuality, decriminalized in Turkey since the middle of the 19th century (1858), is not prohibited, but remains largely subject to social opprobrium and hostility from the ruling Islamic-conservative party, the AKP, and to that of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A minister once called homosexuals "crazy".

In 2020, the Netflix platform had been forced to give up the production of a series in Turkey because it presented a gay character and had not obtained the green light from the authorities.

The same year, the French brand of sports equipment and clothing Decathlon had been the subject of calls for a boycott in Turkey for having conveyed messages of support for the LGBTQ + communities in its campaigns.