Recent raids on LGBTQ+ associations and private homes of LGBTQ+ activists in Türkiye are more than an attack on a marginalised community. Anton Borea argues that they are part of a broader political project that threatens to dismantle the remaining foundations of democratic politics in the country
On 12 and 13 September 2026, Turkish police detained more than a hundred people in an operation reportedly named My Family Is Safe. Charges range from obscenity and facilitating prostitution to drug offences. Justice Minister Akın Gürlek has also cited foreign funding of organisations that 'promote LGBT and immorality'. Western media have rightly focused on the operation’s anti-LGBTQ+ character. But it also fits a familiar pattern: Türkiye’s government has dismantled its opposition one group at a time while others remained silent.
The timing carries weight. The raids began on the anniversary of the 1980 military coup, which reshaped Turkish political life for decades and curtailed freedom of association. Its effects linger: according to research cited by the trade union confederation DİSK, unionisation fell from about 40% before the coup to 14% today. Whether or not the government chose that date deliberately, the symbolism is hard to miss. They will not allow LGBTQ+ groups to organise, at least not any time soon.
The raids come after years of high inflation and a severe cost-of-living crisis. That crisis is bound up with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s presidential system, and it has fuelled growing discontent.
The family, national values and public morality have become key tools for mobilising conservative voters in Türkiye
In response, the government has leaned ever harder on the family, national values and public morality, which have become key tools for mobilising conservative voters. The 2025 Year of the Family, followed by the Decade of Family and Population, cast LGBTQ+ people as threats to the family, morality and the nation’s future. The My Family Is Safe operation fits neatly into this story.
The bargain offered to voters is simple. The government may fail to deliver prosperity, but Erdoğan alone can protect the nation’s moral order and 'traditional values'. Persecuting LGBTQ+ people is part of the price.
Erdoğan's government invokes war and instability across West Asia to portray Türkiye as a country in a permanent state of emergency. In this narrative, the nation allegedly cannot afford political uncertainty, inexperienced leaders or fragile coalitions. It needs a statesman with decades of foreign-policy experience and ties to world leaders. The conclusion is always the same: Erdoğan is indispensable.
Erdoğan's government casts LGBTQ+ rights as a 'western virus', and persecution becomes an act of national self-defence
But an emergency also needs enemies. Here, the global retreat of liberal democracy aids Erdoğan's strategy. As far-right and authoritarian movements gain ground in Europe and the United States, consistent international pressure on Ankara has weakened. Meanwhile, pro-government voices recast liberal democracy as Western cultural imperialism. LGBTQ+ rights become a matter of foreign interference or even a 'western virus', and persecution becomes an act of national self-defence.
Together, these narratives turn a crackdown on a minority into a patriotic duty, leaving few outsiders willing to object.
This is not the first time the government has made accusations of terrorism to justify repression. Indeed, it first used this strategy against the Kurdish political movement. Between 2015 and 2024, the government repeatedly arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned Kurdish politicians. Elected Kurdish mayors were replaced by government-appointed trustees. The Kurdish movement had been a major obstacle to Erdoğan’s presidential ambitions since the 2015 elections. The government justified the crackdown by alleging links to terrorism; many centrists and liberals accepted that justification, and stayed silent.
That silence lowered the political cost of repression. It showed that the government could violate a marginalised group’s rights without provoking broad opposition. It then extended the same tactics to the main opposition. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) swept Istanbul in the March 2024 local elections. Since then, the government has arrested CHP mayors, among them Istanbul’s Ekrem İmamoğlu, the party’s presidential candidate, and has appointed trustees to run several of its municipalities.
Selectively defending the rights of a particular minority group widens the limits of acceptable repression
The lesson is not simply that different groups were targeted at different times. Selectively defending rights widened the limits of acceptable repression. Silence over Kurdish politicians did not protect Turkish democracy. It paved the way for criminalising the main opposition.
LGBTQ+ associations are the newest target of this strategy. If the raids meet no meaningful backlash, the government will have every incentive to move on to women’s rights groups. This is how authoritarianism consolidates: rights violations become normalised, opponents are excluded one by one, and society fails to defend them. Once the Turkish government has silenced political and civil opposition completely, Erdoğan can win elections without real competition. Türkiye’s elections would survive. Its democratic politics would not.
Türkiye's LGBTQ+ community is therefore currently defending more than its own rights. It is defending every citizen’s right to organise, take part in political life, and challenge the government without being branded an enemy of the nation. This is a test of whether Turkish democracy can still accommodate difference.
