Ten years after leaving Turkey to build a future she says she couldn\u2019t see there, Bey K. came to her former country\u2019s front door in New York, worried about those still back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to see my beloved queer community disappearing back home,\u201d Bey said.<\/p>\n
This week, Turkish authorities raided LGBTQ+ and HIV organizations, detained dozens, then detained dozens more who protested their arrests in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my friends just shared on Instagram, just shared she\u2019s taking a shower every night before going to bed because she doesn\u2019t know if in the morning they\u2019re going to take her,\u201d Bey said.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s justice minister says the operation called \u201cMy Family is Safe\u201d is meant to protect children, families and public order. It\u2019s part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s broader family initiative as he warns of declining population growth.<\/p>\n
Erdogan also portrayed LGBTQ+ movements as a threat to the traditional family.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, in Turkey, the queer community is an easy scapegoat,\u201d Turkish immigrant Nur A. said.<\/p>\n
At the protest, demonstrators watched as a consulate worker pulled down a sign supporting the community. In just days, the Turkish president will be in the city with other world leaders for the United Nations General Assembly, bringing the debate they\u2019re having outside this building much closer to the world stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NYPD is prepared to work with organizers of protesters and facilitate First Amendment activity, and as always, and as always, we have no tolerance for violence or destruction of property or breaking the law,\u201d Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Erdogan is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Tuesday. His face already hangs over the consulate. For the people outside, though, the message is less about one speech than what happens after the motorcades leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day he will no longer be here, but we still will. Queer people will always be here,\u201d Nur said.<\/p>\n
The NYPD is anticipating at least 55 demonstrations once the U.N. General Assembly begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten years after leaving Turkey to build a future she says she couldn\u2019t see there, Bey K. came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[25,388,75,9,24,63,308,134,136,135,27,200],"class_list":["post-350796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-app-top-stories","tag-louis-finley","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}