Yaren Çolak
Across Turkey women and LGBTİ+ people filled the streets in revolt against the draft 11th Judicial Package. Targeted under phrases such as ‘violating public morality’ and ‘not acting in line with biological sex’, they once again became the country’s strongest voice. Despite all the pressure from the AKP government the feminist struggle, the LGBTİ+ struggle, grew louder and pushed back reactionary policies. Regulations concerning LGBTİ+ people were removed from the draft. But this will neither discourage the AKP nor other authoritarian and reactionary regimes.
Experts who examine the mechanisms of authoritarianism under the banner of ‘public morality’ have been comparing the 11th Judicial Package to ‘Russia’ ever since it came onto the agenda. So in what ways does the 11th Judicial Package draft, which today has sparked a new ground of struggle in Turkey and targets women and LGBTİ+ people, resemble the legal and ideological strategies in Putin’s Russia? What happened in Russia on similar grounds and what does this parallel mean for Turkey?
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION ANATOMY
In 2013 Russia passed a law titled “Protecting Children from Information Advocating the Rejection of Traditional Family Values”, effectively making LGBTİ+ visibility a crime. The state justified it as preventing ‘non-traditional’ relationships from being encouraged to children. But this regulation was part of a much larger process of social engineering and authoritarianism. The Putin regime used LGBTİ+ existence as an ideological tool to brand it as a ‘moral threat’ reinforce its conservative base and strengthen its authority.
During the passage of the law symbolic kissing protests were held in major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. As expected participation was limited; it was hard to speak even of dozens, let alone hundreds. Police interventions were swift and harsh and many activists were detained. These actions were symbolic but also showed the fragility of resistance and how narrow the oppositional space had become in Russia. LGBTİ+ organising had weakened and the feminist struggle had sunk into deep silence. By 2013 when the law was passed oppositional voices had already been quietened and independent media was under control. Even today, looking back through news archives, the scarcity of information in Russian sources is proof of how lasting this censorship has been.
The efforts of the Russian LGBT Network and other LGBTİ+ and women’s organisations to provide social and legal support did not turn into a mass and lasting public resistance. Instead the struggle was forced into legal processes and international lobbying. Organisations had to survive by losing visibility and relying on underground support. This was part of the state’s strategy: break visible resistance and exile organisations from the public sphere. The law was enacted swiftly in an atmosphere that conservative politicians and the Russian Orthodox Church welcomed and it marked the beginning of a new era in Russia.
SILENCE WAS BUILT
As soon as the law came into force LGBTİ+ communities began to pay a heavy price. The right to organise, public visibility and the existence of a collective identity were criminalised. Only one option remained for LGBTİ+ people: be invisible.
The seriousness of the situation was documented in a report published in 2017 by the Russian LGBT Network. According to the report in the four years after the law against ‘moral dangers’ came into force hate crimes and attacks against LGBTİ+ people doubled. Svetlana Zakharova, coordinator of the organisation’s legal programme, described the process at the time:
“It seems to the perpetrators that the government to some extent supports their actions. Many of them openly describe the crimes they commit as ‘noble’ acts.”
Russian feminist journalist Yelena Kostyuchenko wrote of the danger in the Independent in 2014: “This law is not a propaganda ban; it builds a wall of silence that separates people especially LGBTİ+ people and blocks their ways of self-expression.”
The repression was not short-lived. It was a long-term strategy rooted in law and more was to come, and it did.
THE ‘EXTREMISM’ LAW
The year 2022 marked a turning point in Russia’s anti-LGBTİ+ repression. The 2013 law banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” for minors was expanded. Any form of public ‘propaganda’, media, internet, film and advertisement of ‘non-traditional relations’ was banned for all ages. The Russian Supreme Court labelled the ‘public international LGBTİ+ movement’ as ‘extremism’.
The propaganda ban spread across society; symbols, public events and educational materials were criminalised. Even sharing a flag on social media became a punishable offence. The repression seeped into the simplest moments of daily life. A BBC report from 2023 mentioned a Russian television channel censoring a rainbow flag in a South Korean music video by turning it black and white. Among the convictions was a woman held in custody for five days for wearing rainbow-coloured earrings.
Under the new law the country’s Supreme Court declared the ‘International LGBT Movement’ which has no specific legal entity but covers many human rights organisations and local civil initiatives an ‘extremist organisation’. As a result all groups working on LGBT rights were effectively banned in Russia and their work fell under the threat of criminal prosecution.
In July 2023 another law was passed. In Russia changing gender through medical procedures (including surgery and hormone treatment) and amending gender markers on official documents was largely banned. This also meant public support for gender reassignment surgeries was withdrawn.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RESISTANCE
Russia’s chain of repression and bans that has buried LGBTİ+ people and women in silence for more than a decade offers a stark warning in light of current developments in Turkey. Every legal step in Turkey justified by public morality carries a dangerous similarity to the ‘traditional values’ discourse in Russia. The core aim of both strategies is to erase dissenting and alternative identities from the public sphere and establish the ideological hegemony of an authoritarian power.
As we approach 25 November the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women recognising the growing importance of resistance in Turkey is essential. The example of Russia shows that falling into the trap of silence leads to the permanent loss of freedoms. The voices rising against the 11th Judicial Package in Turkey must target not only this package but all possible future mechanisms of repression.
8 March is ours 25 November is ours but we must sustain our struggle every day for a liveable equal and free country. We must not let them suffocate us in silence or trap us in darkness. The women’s and LGBTİ+ movement in Turkey must continue to walk with determination and a strong voice to avoid losing the space that Russia has lost.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Rusya aynasında Türkiye gerçekliği, published in BirGün newspaper on November 25, 2025.
