Istanbul, Turkey
The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Has called on the youth of his country to reject homosexuality on Monday, at the same time as controversy is growing over the arrest of four students accused of insulting Islam with LGBT symbols at Bogazici University in Istanbul.
“Our youth is not an LGBT youth,” Erdogan exclaimed during a virtual meeting with his party’s youth branch. the Islamist Justice and Development (AKP), which has ruled Turkey since 2002.
“You are a youth with computers and keyboards, you are LGBT to us. You are not a youth that the plague is spreading, in return, you are a youth that lifts broken or fallen hearts; I trust you,” the president added.
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The comments of Erdogan they sparked an unbridled controversy last week, when police arrested five students at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, accusing them of insulting Islam for placing an image of the Caaba on the ground during an art exhibition in the gardens of the institution.
The controversial work showed the sacred complex of Mecca, with an image of a popular being of the mythology anatolia, Half woman and half snake, in place of the Caaba, and adding a rainbow flag in one corner.
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced the arrests on Saturday, labeling the students “LGBT perverts”, and on the same day, two were remanded in custody on charges of “incitement to hatred”, while two others are in house arrest, Reports the newspaper Diken.
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Homosexuality is legal in Turkey since 1858, but rejected by much of society, although in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities there is a vibrant gay community and annual pride marches were held until they were banned in 2015.
Politician Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the ultranationalist MHP party, which is an AKP coalition partner in parliament, denounced in a speech today that the Turkish intelligentsia was not bothered by the image of the Caaba and compared the exhibition of the play with the 1979 armed Islamist rebellion in Mecca, which resulted in more than 300 deaths.