Annual Pride marches are common at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, however in 2019 a group of Turkish students were told they were not allowed to go ahead with their scheduled pro-LGBTQ+ events.
The students were told they were unable to fly a rainbow flag, to sit on the lawn, or stand under tents, and were later prevented from reading out a statement in favour of the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, eighteen students and one academic at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University are set to go on trial for staging a sit-in, which was violently broken up by police and over 20 students were arrested.
Fotis Filippou, Campaigns Director for Europe at Amnesty International, condemned the aggressive intervention of the sit-in last year. “