UPDATE 14/05/18: This action is now closed. With your help, the students were able to safely have their Pride march last Friday.
Thank you to the almost 5,000 people who sent emails to the university.
UPDATE 10/05/18: Your support and solidarity is boosting the student’s determination – they have moved the Pride march to tomorrow despite the ban still being in place. Please keep taking action!
University students in Ankara, Turkey, are preparing for their seventh Pride march on 12 May – in defiance of a new blanket ban on LGBTQI events in Ankara, and despite stern warnings from the authorities.
The students are asking people around the world to add their support to their cause, so that the authorities don’t shut down the march.
Ankara-based Middle East Technical University students have put on a Pride festival every year for the last seven years, but an indefinite ban by the Ankara Governorate on all LGBTQI events in Ankara has been in effect since November 2017.
LGBTQI organisations and activists in Ankara speak of the devastating impact of the ban, forcing the once vibrant and growing movement to near invisibility.