Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Law on Misdemeanor and the troubles of LGBT

The Law on Misdemeanor is arbitrarily applied by the police in Turkey to prosecute the LGBT individuals. Bianet reports on a recent incident, in which the Ankara police stopped the three members of the of the Pink Life Association, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organization in a traffic control on 19 June 2010 on the busy Bağlar Avenue. After checking their IDs, the police decided to take the three individuals to the police station by reason of the Law on Misdemeanour and was going to apply a monetary fine. The Pink Life members protested the applications. Thereupon, the police made the three individuals to leave their car and took them into custody. Now they stand trial for alleged resistance against the police.

Previously, other members of the Pink Life organization, were subjected to police violence and ill-treatment, and stood trial on charges of "resistance to the police" and "insult of a civil servant on duty", which ended with the acquittal of the defendants due to lack of evidence for the alleged offenses. Read on Bianet.