Interior ministry in Turkey investigates municipality over LGBTQIA+ workshop

The interior ministry of Turkey opened an investigation into the municipal corporation of Nilufer district in Turkey’s western city of Bursa after conservative media started a smear campaign over an educational activity concerning gender equality.

“They will make Turkey a perversion nest! Institutional support for LGBT perversion from the Nilufer Municipality,” pro-government Islamist newspaper Yeni Akit titled an article over the matter, also accusing the CHP (Republican People’s Party) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu of promising “legal assurance for homosexual deviants.”

Another pro-government ahaber said “while Turkey was making effort to support the notion of family, Nilufer Minicipality established a special center for LGBT.”

After the defamation campaign by the media, the mayor of Nilufer district said they postponed the gender workshop project.

"We have been sadly watching the smear campaign that has been going on with unfounded allegations against the Nilufer Municipality for the last 2 days. The allegations are completely unfounded. Nilufer City Council Youth Assembly has organized a 'Gender Workshop' for young people. The center in question is a place where young people carry out educational activities in Nilufer and is not a center specific to LGBT individuals,” mayor Turgay Erdem said.