To the dismay of LGBT organizations, the Turkish government has announced it will move forward with its plan to build separate prisons for self-declared gay, bisexual and transgender inmates. The goal, officials argue, is to protect those in the sexual minority. “Convicts who stated that they are gay will not mix with other convicts in the communal area or during social activities in the new prison facilities,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said in a written answer to a parliamentary question reports the Agence France-Presse.
“This is a medieval-age practice. This kind of segregation is nothing but a punishment” said Murat Koylu, a spokesman for the Ankara-based gay rights group Kaos GL. “Instead of creating public areas where people from all sexual orientations can live together, the government has once again chosen to ostracize homosexuals,” he said. “This will lead to the profiling of gay prisoners, as well as their families and the prison itself. How will the government be able to protect those prisoners who are not openly gay?”
Turkey still considers itself a secular nation despite a large and, some would argue, increasingly influential Muslim population. Unlike other Muslim nations, same-sex relationships, sex change operations and prostitution are not criminalized
But according to a report by Amnesty International, Turkey is far from being the only country that segregates gay prisoners. Many prisons here in the United States isolate self-declared gay and transgender convicts effectively confining them to solitary confinement, a punishment widely considered cruel and unusual.
The challenge for many officials is how to maintain order and protect the lives of the people in their care. For many members of the LGBT community, being out in prison substantially increases their risk of being sexually assaulted. According to Just Detention International, LGBT inmates are “among the most vulnerable in the prison population.” 67 percent of LGBT prisoners in California report being assaulted while in prison.
Back in Turkey, meanwhile, the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) has enacted a series of human rights reforms to boost Turkey’s efforts to join the EU, although it has not recognized homosexual rights. Gay groups were among those joining nationwide demonstrations in June against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
