Government’s Anti-LGBT policies & more– 20th June 2023

Merhaba from BA! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 20th of June, twenty twenty-three. A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

People all over the world are celebrating pride month. However, Turkey’s doing the opposite. The government has upped its hostile politics toward the LGBT community in the weeks following the election.

Many cities and districts banned pride parades across the country, and the police have battered those who tried to march anyway.

On Sunday the 18th, the police blocked the Beyoğlu district in İstanbul to prevent the Trans Pride March from happening. The people said that there was no official ban on marching for Beyoğlu, but that the police used excessive force and detained many people.

Still on the topic of the LGBT community…

On Thursday the 15th, Fatih Erbakan, the head of the New Welfare Party, called the LGBT community ‘one of the biggest disasters of recent times’ and added that it was ‘an important project of external forces against Turkey’. He said that his party would fight to prevent this ‘perversion’ in the parliament.

Last Tuesday, Turkey held the Elle Style Awards. Melike Şahin and Mabel Matiz, both well-known singers, dedicated their awards to the LGBTQ+ community. Since then, many conservative people and pro-government figures targeted the singers for expressing their support.

Shortly after the award show, on Saturday the 17th, the Denizli Municipality, run by the ruling Justice and Development Party or AKP, announced on Twitter the decision to cancel both singers’ concerts. Similarly, the Bursa Municipality, also run by the AKP, canceled Melek Şahin’s concert.

On some news on politics…

The elections are over, but Erdoğan is still targeting Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition: the Republican People’s Party or CHP. This week, on Saturday the 17th, he called the latter a ‘dictator’ for refusing to resign from his position despite his unsuccessful election campaign.

Erdoğan also mentioned the recent disagreement between Kılıçdaroğlu and İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul and a member of the CHP, over the need for change in the party’s policies, and called it a ‘throne fight between father and son’.

Erdoğan wrapped up his speech saying that Turkey needs a new opposition. However, some opposition figures said that Erdoğan should be grateful to the current one and its shortcomings, instead of trying to change it, as it has enabled him to stay in power for twenty years.

Let’s get back to Erbakan for a moment…

In a twist of events, Erbakan said that intervening in people’s lifestyles was against his party’s ideology. He added that God gave people the freedom to sin, and taking that away from people was a sin itself. He said that the CHP tried to make it look like the ruling bloc was forcing a certain lifestyle on people, and added that the AKP had never intervened in that way in the twenty-one years that it has been in office.

That brings about the question: Who canceled music festivals due to complaints from extremist Islamist organizations, banned LGBT+ marches, threatened to shut down LGBT+ and women’s rights organizations, banned the sale of alcohol after 10 PM and forbade playing music after 1 AM?

Grown-ups and kids should follow these restrictions, but nothing stopped this Turkish from escaping from his trip. A seventeen-year-old high schooler traveled to Italy as part of an Erasmus project with his school. However, during the trip, he fled to Germany and applied for asylum there. His teachers reported that the student excused himself to the bathroom and didn’t return. Some time later, the boy texted his teacher saying ‘Don’t look for me. I won’t return.’ He’s reportedly in a refugee camp in Germany right now.

The head of the European Union’s Turkey Delegation states that Turkish visa holders have been increasingly applying for asylum in Europe.

Onto some news on the economy…

On Tuesday the 20th, the government increased the minimum wage from 8,500 liras, around 350 US Dollars, to over eleven thousand Liras, or 480 US Dollars. People are not sure if this is good news or bad news, as increased wages mean increased expenses for companies, which results in higher price tags on products, which decreases the buying power of the money the people earn, causing soaring inflation. On the other hand, most people in Turkey earn minimum wage, so the raise was much needed.

Moving on…

Many international finance firms are making predictions about whether the Central Bank would increase the policy interest rate this month. Experts forecast that the bank will increase the rate to somewhere between 20% and 40%. The date will be announced on Thursday the 22nd of June.

Let’s talk about budgeting…

The Birgün newspaper reported that in the first four months of twenty twenty-three, the Religious Affairs Directorate, a state-run institution funded by the government, has spent over sixteen billion liras, around 680 million dollars, which is more than the amount the ministries of foreign affairs and energy and natural resources spent combined.

Back to the ruling bloc…

Devlet Bahçeli, the head of the Nationalist People’s Party, hinted that the government might be working on abolishing the central University Entrance Exam in the future. Currently, in order to enroll in a university, students have to take the entrance exam and get the necessary points to secure a plac. The Turkish education system is heavily reliant on exams. Students are also placed in high schools through a central exam.

Now some news on the freedom of press…

On Saturday the 17th, the journalist Sinan Aygül declared that the bodyguards of a district mayor in the city of Bitlis attacked him because he was writing about corruption in the district municipality, which is run by the ruling AKP. Aygül said that while the bodyguard battered him, a police officer held a gun to scare the public from trying to intervene in the attack. He also said that the bodyguard threatened to kill him if he ever wrote about the district mayor again.

However, the district mayor denied being involved in the attack and even added that he started an administrative investigation against the municipality personnel Aygül talked about. The bodyguard and the police officer have reportedly been suspended.

The sunny season has come, and it brings lots of tourists to the country. However, experts say that Turkey is becoming too expensive for foreigners, despite the depreciation of the lira against other currencies. A member of the Turkish Travel Agencies Association said that Russian tourists were opting for a summer vacation in Egypt this year because it was cheaper than Turkey. The Russian Tour Operators Association also said that over five million Russians traveled to Turkey last year. However, the number could potentially drop to four million this year.

Tourist companies in Turkey say that due to the high inflation in the country, the prices have gone up the roof, and tourists sometimes have to pay two thousand euros more than they did the previous year for the same vacation. Which is a lot, considering that inflation is less than 10% in most European countries.

Lastly, a footage of a livestock breeder forcing a cow to drink beer out of a glass beer bottle went viral. The breeder received backlash for abusing the animal. Following the severe backlash, he made a video saying that people misunderstood what was happening in the video. He said that the bottle had medicine in it, and he put the medicine in a beer bottle because plastic bottles got squeezed in the cow's mouth. He still received a fine for health concerns. During the investigation, the police found that the breeder had a court order for jail time on charges of possession. He’s now seving a sentence.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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