News Centre A total of 81 people have been arrested as part of the nationwide ‘My Family is Safe’ operation. In Istanbul, the legal proceedings for the 33 people detained as part of the operation targeting the LGBT+ community were completed last night at the Istanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan. Following questioning by the public prosecutor’s office, 20 of the 33 were referred to the magistrates’ court with a request for detention, whilst 13 were referred with a request for judicial supervision.
All 20 of those for whom detention was requested were remanded in custody. In the operation carried out in Ankara, 13 people were remanded in custody. Journalist Tuğba Tekerek, who was arrested for writing a single news article relating to the LGBTI+ movement, and seven members of the Kaos GL Management and Supervisory Board were among those remanded in custody.
In an investigation conducted by the Izmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on the grounds that 18 people had allegedly engaged in ‘activities aimed at disrupting public peace and tranquillity across the city’ and committed the offences of ‘obscenity’ and ‘encouraging, facilitating or providing a venue for prostitution’ via their social media accounts, 16 of those detained were remanded in custody. It was decided that two individuals would be released subject to judicial supervision. Among those remanded in custody were trans women, LGBTI+ individuals and the dancer Zenne Arif.
Meanwhile, of the 36 people detained in Mersin, 27 were remanded in custody, whilst of the six individuals transferred to the courthouse in Aydın, five were also remanded in custody. As reactions to the arrests and operations intensified, the Izmir Labour and Democracy Forces issued a statement drawing attention to the arrests carried out as part of the ‘My Family is Safe’ operations, as well as other political detention processes in the city. The statement emphasised that detention should not be allowed to become a means of long-term punishment.
Police interventions and arrests during protests against operations targeting the LGBT+ community also received extensive coverage in the international press. Reuters, the Associated Press and Le Monde highlighted the numbers of arrests and detentions, whilst drawing attention to the hardening of rhetoric towards the LGBT+ community and the interventions against the protests. Meanwhile, hundreds of academics and researchers from various countries around the world published an open letter.
The signatories, including Judith Butler, Thomas Piketty, Slavoj Žižek and Étienne Balibar, called for the release of those detained and for the investigations into the organisations to be halted. Özgül Saki, an MP for the DEM Party in Istanbul, brought the operations targeting LGBTI+ people to the attention of the Turkish Grand National and submitted a written question to Justice Minister Gürlek and Home Affairs Minister Çiftçi. Saki asked about the legal basis for the operations, the scope of the term ‘public morality’ and the allegations linking LGBTI+ people to criminal activity.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Operasyonlar kapsamında en az 81 kişi tutuklandı: Aileler şimdi güvende!, published in BirGün newspaper on September 18, 2026.
