Turkish court bans Grindr as a “protection measure”
grindr, turkey
“We are very upset to hear that the Istanbul Anatolia 14th Criminal Court of Peace blocked Grindr as a ‘protection measure.’ Grindr was created to help facilitate the connection between gay men – especially in countries where the LGBT community is oppressed. We hope that this is only temporary and quickly gets overturned as our community should not be silenced.”
Grindr CEO and founder Joel Simkhai, speaking about news that Turkey has officially censored and banned access to Grindr, the popular gay dating app.
As Turkey becomes increasingly less secular, and increasingly more intolerant of minorities, it was only a matter of time before its government began quashing access to services outwith the “traditional” heterosexual lifestyle. For thousands of gay men in the country, that day has arrived, as the 14th Criminal Court of Istanbul has decreed that access to Grindr should be blocked as a “protection measure”.
A lawyer for KAOS GL, Turkey’s largest LGBT association, told the Huffington Post, “The court decision is not published online and so we have no access to the procuration and therefore do not yet know what was the reason for the censorship. It is most likely related to ‘general morality’, an ambiguous term used often against trans sex workers.”
KAOS GL’s Media Coordinator continued by saying, “The Turkish government, through Ministry of Family and Social Policies, uses the discourse on the ‘traditional heterosexual family’ increasingly as a pretext to suppress LGBT rights… LGBT people has [sic] never been considered as equal citizens all through the history of Turkish Republic.”
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