Turkey: Anti-homophobia video withdrawn upon death threats

The producer and actors of an anti-homophobia video were subjected to insults and death threats, a LGBT rights organization in Turkey said, adding that the video was taken off social media platforms over security concerns.

The video was recently brought to public attention as the administration of Turkey's state railways said they filed a criminal complaint against the makers of the video, which was recorded in a decommissioned commuter train with the permission of the administration.

“Elimizi uzatmaya devam edeceğiz; biliyoruz ki o el havada kalmayacak”

????Kaos GL kamu spotunu; filmi çeken şirket ile filmdeki oyunculara hakaret ve ölüm tehditleri nedeniyle yayından kaldırdı.

????Toplumsal barış mesajına TCDD’den suç duyurusu!https://t.co/YJ19AaDVYm pic.twitter.com/RM8L0Effu6

— Kaos GL (@KaosGL) September 26, 2023

KAOS-GL Association, who had released the anti-hate video as a public service announcement on various social media platforms, said on Tuesday:

"We would like to thank everyone who watched the video that we shared with the slogan 'Hand in hand against hate,' which we hope will be inspiring as a public service announcement that promotes solidarity for co-existence and against the targeting of LGBTI+ people. Unfortunately, those who cannot even tolerate videos against hate launched an operation of hatred that we are actually familiar with."

It continued:

"This time, we were not the sole target of this operation. The situation escalated to insults and death threats targeting the company who shot the film and the actors in the film. We do not want anyone holding our hand to get hurt. For this reason, we removed the video. Still, we will continue to extend our hand as we did in the past 29 years."