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Dear John,
The modern LGBTI+ pride movement was sparked at New York’s Stonewall Inn in 1969 — and it wasn’t a celebration. It was an uprising against police violence and ill-treatment.
More than 50 years later, LGBTI+ activists in Turkey are still facing police repression and violence. Melike Balkan and Özgür Gür are university students who were tear-gassed and beaten by police at their school’s Pride march. Now, along with 17 others, they face trial and a prison sentence, simply for organizing their campus Pride.
Act now: Send a letter to the Ambassador of Turkey, demanding officials immediately drop all charges against Melike, Özgür, and the others involved in this peaceful protest.
Melike and Özgür are prominent members of the LGBTI+ solidarity group at their school. But despite years of growing support and growing Pride marches, university officials banned the group’s 2019 Pride march. In response, the students held a peaceful sit-in and were met with excessive police force, including tear gas.
Their fate rests with the court — and they are facing up to three years in prison.
Amnesty has chosen both Melike and Özgür as activists to spotlight in our annual Write for Rights campaign, an international letter-writing campaign where people like you send hundreds of thousands of letters to world leaders, with the goal of freeing prisoners of conscience and protecting human right defenders under attack.
John, these letters matter. In the past, an overwhelming amount of letters sent by Amnesty members helped to amplify the case of Magai Matiop Ngong in South Sudan, who was put on death row as a child. Because of this public pressure, Magai’s death sentence was subsequently quashed and he was removed from death row.
Please, join tens of thousands of Amnesty supporters worldwide: send a letter demanding the charges against Melike and Özgür be dropped.
Here’s what Özgür tells us about why this matters to him:
“Pride has an extraordinary value. If you look at the history of Pride, we see it in Stonewall, Istanbul Pride, in all Prides. It is a struggle against violence, against hate crimes, all over the world. Pride is a moment where you can express the things you experience in your life; you can be yourself. That’s why they are so important.”
Many people may prefer not to focus on cases like these — but Amnesty supporters are different: you refuse to look away from human rights defenders at risk, you help sound the alarm to make sure the world is watching — and together, your support has helped keep human rights defenders safe and free thousands of wrongly accused and imprisoned advocates.
Thanks for standing up for what is right.
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