Interior Minister Soylu boasts about Turkey's crackdown on LGBT people, 'being Muslim state'

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has boasted about the crackdown against the LGBTI+ community, saying it was one of the reasons why the global terror financing watchdog FATF placed Tukey on its grey list. "We have blocked the LGBT so that they don't destroy our family structure or push kids into debauchery. You [the Western countries] are involved in every kind of perversion, but we do not have to get involved in that; we are a Muslim state," Soylu said.

Friday October 22 2021 02:31 pm

This collage photo shows Interior Minister Soylu and a LGBTI demonstration.

Duvar English

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said that Turkey's crackdown against the LGBTI+ community was one of the reasons why the country was grey listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The FATF, set up by the G7 group of advanced economies to protect the global financial system, said on Oct. 21 that Turkey had failed to head off money laundering and terrorist financing.

Making comments on the FATF move, Soylu said on Oct. 22 that it is instead "Europe that's financing terrorism" and that the global finance watchdog's move was "political."

He cited a number of reasons for why the FATF gave this decision, including Turkey's crackdown against the LGBTI+ community.

"We have blocked the LGBT so that they don't destroy our family structure or push kids into debauchery. You [the Western countries] are involved in every kind of perversion, but we do not have to get involved in that; we are a Muslim state," Soylu said.

The Turkish government has employed a strict crackdown on LGBTI+ participants in civil unrest over the past year, notably among university students who have been in protest for months about the government's appointment of pro-government figures as rector of Boğaziçi University.

Soylu said that Turkey's decision to keep philanthropist Osman Kavala and renowned Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş was also behind the FATF's move.

"We had one deficiency. We did not release Osman Kavala, we did not release Demirtaş. We did not receive any instructions from anyone in the fight against PKK and FETÖ [Fethullahist Terrorist Organization]. We consider this [FATF's] decision as a political decision," the minister said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Gülen network.

Soylu also slammed a public statement by 10 ambassadors urging Kavala's release as "daring," and said that the ambassadors might even in the future call for the release of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.

The minister's comments came after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened to expel the US, German and eight other Western ambassadors over their statement on Kavala.