Anti-LGBTIQ hate speech from the President and a governmental official amidst student protests

February 2021: On 1 February, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned young LGBT persons in a video to his Justice and Development Party, stating “we will carry our young people to the future, not as the LGBT youth, but as the youth that existed in our nation’s glorious past. You are not the LGBT youth, not the youth who commit acts of vandalism. On the contrary, you are the ones who repair broken hearts.” On 3 February, Erdogan called the student protesters “terrorists” and said “the LGBT, there is no such thing.” In response to the image of the Kaaba with LGBT flags, the Interior Minister referred to the student protesters as “LGBT deviants” in a Tweet, which was flagged as hateful content by Twitter.

See BBC news, February 2021; France24, February 2021 and Reuters, February 2021.