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Human Rights Review
Published in: Human Rights Review 1/2017

10-11-2016

Advancing LGBT Rights in Turkey: Tolerance or Protection?

Authors: Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat, Caryl Nuňez

Published in: Human Rights Review | Issue 1/2017

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Abstract

Tolerance is treated as a virtue and a key principle in liberal theories of the state and human rights. Critics of liberalism have already addressed limitations of tolerance, and the United Nations (UN) introduced broader and more inclusive human rights and non-discrimination norms. Yet, tolerance is still invoked in human rights advocacy, and the UN promotes teaching tolerance as a means to protect human rights. However, there is an asymmetrical relationship between the “tolerant” and the “tolerated,” which must be questioned for its human rights implications. The paper contends that tolerance does not ensure non-discrimination, freedom from persecution, or ending violence. Instead, it can be complicit in violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. As an illustrative case, it examines Turkey—a country that has pursued the liberal policy of tolerance by not criminalizing homosexuality—during a reform period that involved further liberalization of law but not the protection of LGBT rights.
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Footnotes
1
“Honor killings” have been traditionally pursued for girls and women who were believed to have violated the cultural norms of modesty. Sometimes, victims of rape are also penalized the same way. Most common in eastern provinces, the decision to kill is usually made by male leaders of the extended family who also designate the person to carry out the act. According to an estimate, about 200 women are killed annually for this purpose (OMCT 2003).
 
2
For example, on October 7, 2011, 27-year-old Fevzi Çetin shot and killed his 24-year-old transgendered brother Ramazan Çetin (CBS News 2011).
 
3
Following the trans etiquette, we employ “T” in reference to the trans spectrum and LGBT as a short reference to all identities outside hetero-normativity.
 
4
Although lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI) persons do not all share a common identity and it is difficult to escape the politics in a name, we use same-gender love and gender identity to differentiate from “homosexuality” as a scientific claim and the conflation of identities that LGBTQI supposes (Epprecht 2008, 8).
 
5
Statistics on violence are always tricky, since an increase in the number may mean improved reporting as well as an increase in incidents. Statistics on violence against the LGBT have not been available for the case of Turkey. What we know is that there has been increased media coverage.
 
6
Analysists tend to agree that the reform process was facilitated, if not caused, by the desire to join the EU (Arat 2007; Arat and Smith 2014). However, as the majority of EU member states’ reluctance to accept Turkey became increasingly overt and they kept demanding more from Turkey (which were seen as double standards from Turkey’s perspective), Turkey’s hope of membership faded, along with the incentive to continue with the reforms. Moreover, the successive electoral successes enhanced the self-confidence of the ruling party AKP and curbed its desire to compromise or appease the opposition. Reading the landslide electoral victories as a mandate to put their ideology and agenda into practice, the AKP leaders became increasingly authoritarian.
 
7
See http://​www.​thesaurus.​com/​browse/​tolerance?​s=​t. On racism as an opposite of tolerance, see Galeotti 2002, 17 and 137–168.
 
9
Our critical stance on liberalism and tolerance is shared by others who offer more extended discussions than what is permitted by our limited space. See Brown 2006; Galeotti 2002. For a supportive treatment of liberal tolerance, see Creppell 2003; Tønder 2013; Walzer 1997.
 
10
The IBR includes three documents: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), The International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (1966), and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
 
11
On negative versus positive rights, see Arat 2006, 40–43.
 
12
See Bowlin (2016, 188–193) who considers tolerance to be a virtue but argues against Harel (1996) who assigns primacy to autonomy and permits a community within a liberal state to discriminate against LGBT.
 
13
Galeotti (2002) shares our criticism of the asymmetry embodied in the term “tolerance,” but she introduces the notion of “tolerance as recognition” as an “alternative to liberal tolerance.” We see her “tolerance as recognition” as corresponding to our conceptualization of “acceptance.”
 
14
Employers may ask a candidate if he has completed his military service and the cause, if the person was exempted or discharged. They can reject or fire LGBT people without facing any legal sanctions.
 
15
Given the high levels of social stigma and inflicted fear, many LGBT people remain in “the closet” (Bereket and Adam 2008) and force themselves to assimilate into heterosexual lifestyles, get married, and have children. Denying their identity, however, results in chronic depression, at best, or self-hatred that may surface as overt and violent homophobia. Some murder cases and other violent attacks against homosexual or transgender males were carried out by “heterosexual” men after they had sex with their victim. Such incidents encourage the police to claim: “In our country, homosexual homicides do not result from discrimination. The violence is not against homosexuals, but between homosexuals” (HRW 2008, 6).
 
16
This perception is common but not based on a systematical analysis, since the law in Turkey does not include a category of “hate crimes” and no such statistical data are collected.
 
17
Burhan Kuzu, a prominent figure in the AKP, who as Chair of the Constitution Committee of Parliament complained about “excessive” demands for rights: “There is no end to people’s demands…Homosexuals, too, made some demands…Should we grant them just because they want them?” (Karakuş 2008).
 
18
The AKP government has been responding to the criticisms brought up by foreign observers and reports issued by the European Commission that monitors human rights developments in Turkey with the claim that it has been working on the problem of discrimination and drafting a comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation. However, the Law on Combating Discrimination and [Creating] the Council of Equality has been in a draft stage since March 2010. Although an earlier version was commended for being comprehensive, including “sexual [gender] identity” among the list of individual characteristics that cannot be used for discrimination (Hürriyet Daily News 2010), it is noted that sexual/gender identity was removed from the draft sometime in early 2011 (Human Rights Violations 2012, 4; AI 2011, 10). The final form of the bill, and when and if it will be put on the legislative agenda, is yet to be seen.
 
19
An LGBT organization, Pink Life, claimed that during the first 8 months of 2011, the police “fined transgender individuals a total of 226,000 lira ($122,000) in 1,400 administrative actions” in the coastal city of Antalya alone. Moreover, “Three transgender individuals from Pembe Hayat were convicted with charges for resisting police. After being stopped by police and asking why they were to be taken to the police station, the police responded ‘Because you are transvestites’” (U.S. Department of State 2011, 39).
 
20
See “Turkish police crack down on Gay Pride in Istanbul,” Hurriyet Daily News. June 28, 2015. http://​www.​hurriyetdailynew​s.​com/​turkish-police-crack-down-on-gay-pride-in-istanbul.​aspx?​pageID=​517&​nID=​84673&​NewsCatID=​339 (accessed July 20, 2015).
 
21
The AKP’s gender approach should not be treated as representing the religion. For different approaches to sexual orientation and gender identity in Islamic tradition, see Kugle, 2010.
 
22
Fatma Şahin took over Kavaf’s cabinet post after the 2011 elections. When asked if she shared Kavaf’s beliefs, she tried to avoid controversy with the anachronistic claim that the issue “is being debated in the scientific community”; adding that her “conservative democratic” party and government “have to take protective measures against notions that threaten family values,” she characterized same-gender love as a threat (Haber Türk 2011, translation ours).
 
23
The only AKP member who came close to recognizing the legitimacy of LGBT organizations was Zafer Üskül. As Chair of the Human Rights Committee of Parliament, he attended a meeting, “The International Assignation against Homophobia,” organized by KAOS-GL in 2008. His gesture of “openness” was halted by instant assaults in the religious media, including the daily Vakit’s invective commentary, which carried a multi-layered headline (“Üskül’s preference is in favor of perverts”) and disparaged him for “attending the meeting of sexual perverts” and “showing up at a gathering of f----s” (Tahincioğlu 2010).
 
24
Held on November 26–27, 2010, the conference was organized by the Foundation of Journalists and Writers of the Gülen community network, which has presented itself as an Islamic “service” community and was an ally of the AKP until 2013. It brought together 600 “selected” academics and intellectuals from 53 countries. Several AKP members of the parliament attended the event, and Selma Aliye Kavaf delivered an opening speech as the State Minister responsible of family affairs.
 
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Metadata
Title
Advancing LGBT Rights in Turkey: Tolerance or Protection?
Authors
Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat
Caryl Nuňez
Publication date
10-11-2016
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Human Rights Review / Issue 1/2017
Print ISSN: 1524-8879
Electronic ISSN: 1874-6306
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-016-0439-x

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