Istanbul lockdown aims to prevent May Day marches
Istanbul authorities on Wednesday closed metro trains, buses and Bosphorous ferries, paralysing Turkey's biggest city in a bid to prevent May Day demonstrations.
Ahead of the holiday, police arrested 100 people allegedly planning to protest on Istanbul's central Taksim Square, where demonstrations have been banned since 2013.
The government is also embroiled in a showdown with the main opposition Republican People's Party (CPH) since the detention of its presidential candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and the biggest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Since protests in 2013 which spread across Turkey and were suppressed by police, claiming eight lives, the government has banned gatherings in Taksim, even for the May 1 Labour Day, International Women's Day or Pride marches.
From Wednesday evening, seven metro stations and some of Istanbul's busiest bus and streetcar stops were closed off, according to city authorities.
The crackdown includes restrictions on access to the Kadikoy neighbourhood, where several trade unions had called for a rally on Thursday's May Day.
Other emblematic locations such as the Palace of Justice and the municipal government headquarters have also been cordoned off.
Since Monday, police have staged raids to round up people who called for May Day rallies at Taksim Square, media reports said. Istanbul's chief prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 108 people.
- End 'spurious' ban -
Rights group Amnesty International urged Turkey to lift the ban on demonstrations.
"The restrictions on May Day celebrations in Taksim Square are based on entirely spurious security and public order grounds and ... must be urgently lifted," said Dinushika Dissanayake, an Amnesty's specialist on Europe.
As happens every year, the square has been sealed off with metal barriers and many thousands of police likely to be deployed to prevent any violations.
Police rounded up 20 people on Wednesday as part of the clampdown, Turgut Delioglu, head of the DISK union's media section, told AFP.
He said the union would gather on Thursday in the Kadikoy sector.
Taksim Square was fenced off last month following the arrest and jailing of Imamoglu. The move sparked the biggest anti-government protests in Turkey since 2013.
Istanbul governor Davut Gul has said anyone defying the ban on demonstrations at Taksim would be prosecuted.
Amnesty said the ban defied a 2023 ruling by Turkey's Constitutional Court which found the restriction on May Day rallies in the square violated unions' rights to freedom of assembly.
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SBS Australia
31-05-2025
- SBS Australia
Jeremy says he's lived 'a terrific life'. He almost missed out on it
LGBTIQ+ Australians tell their funny, heartfelt stories of 50+ years of pride and protest. Source: SBS News / Caroline Huang This article contains references to suicide. Jeremy Fisher had to walk past the door of his university's Gay Liberation Club several times before he had the courage to knock and enter. Back in 1973, he was scared of being 'outed' for his sexuality but brave enough to seek out people like him within Sydney's gay community, who largely kept their identities private. The then 18-year-old had been excited to move from his small NSW northern rivers town of Kyogle to the big smoke and explore what college life had to offer. He was also excited and curious to meet men. But things became "grim" for him that year. Now in his 80s, Fisher recalls how he recovered from a horrific assault and suicide attempt as a young man to live a life of "quiet" activism — always out, visible and true to himself. As SBS marks 50 years of storytelling , here are five stories of LGBTIQ+ Australians who have lived through historic changes in that time. Australia: An Unofficial History Recounting his first year of study at Sydney's Macquarie University, Fisher tells SBS News how his excitement for city life quickly dissipated. "I'd been going into the city to different gay bars and stuff, and I'd met a guy there who essentially sexually assaulted me. Well, not essentially — he did," he says. "And this left me feeling depressed, thinking that things were wrong and I shouldn't be living this sort of life. I attempted to take my own life in that room. Fisher was found alone in his dorm room by a cleaner and taken to hospital where he was nursed back to health. But the Anglican-run Robert Menzies College at Macquarie University wouldn't allow him to return unless he agreed to be celibate and renounce homosexuality. "I didn't see that as being particularly what I wanted to do," Fisher says. Instead, he formed an unlikely alliance with tradies working on the college's construction site, who voted to protest Fisher's treatment by stopping work. "When it was put to them that there was a guy who's been unfairly kicked out of the college just because of his sexuality they went 'well, that's not fair. That's not a good idea'. "And so they supported it, which was remarkable." But Fisher says the pink ban in some ways "wasn't really a win" because the college's administration still refused to let him return and would not refund his rental bond. Nevertheless, he's proud that "an awful lot of fuss was kicked up in terms of this being the first industrial action in support of gay rights". During his time at uni, Fisher and the 10 or so other members of the Macquarie University Gay Liberation Club would also engage in public acts of defiance and gay pride, known as 'zaps'. "We'd go on a bus and kiss and cuddle, which would provoke various reactions from people, but the point was to try and make ourselves visible and make people realise that we were there," he explains. "There were other groups that were more, let's say, respectable. And we were not respectable at all." After university, Fisher became more settled and focused on work. He graduated in 1976 with an education degree but the state had too many teachers and instead he landed a job at the Medical Journal of Australia. It launched his near-five-decade career in publishing and editing, for which he won an Order of Australia medal in 2017. He jokes he hasn't won an Order of Australia medal for being gay yet. But life became dark again for a time in the 1980s when Australia and the world were in the grip of the AIDS crisis. Gay men were dying in the thousands from the brutal sexually-transmitted disease. At the time, homosexuality was still illegal in NSW, where Fisher lived, as it was in Queensland, WA and Tasmania. "There were many, many, many friends who were just gone. You were going to funerals constantly," he recalls. "I'll look at some photos and I'll go: 'oh, all of those people are dead.'" He says living through that experience is "just one of those things that you don't quite get over". Having lost so many close friends over the years, Fisher counts himself lucky, adding that he would have missed out on "a terrific life doing lots of things", had he not been given a second chance. "At one point I tried to take my own life. But I don't feel bad about myself at all because of my sexuality. And if people do then they've got to get some help to be able to see that they're worthy of just being." Sallie Colechin realised she was a lesbian around 50 years ago when she fell in with a group of feminists. The photographer says her teenage years were pretty typical but attending her first International Women's Day March in Sydney in 1975 opened her up to an exciting new world. "We then went to a dinner that night with a bunch of feminist women in Annandale [in Sydney's inner-west] and we heard about the Amazon Acres Women's Mountain Farm. "We thought, oh, we have to go and visit there, which we did in my Mini Cooper about three times that year, and I started to realise that I was attracted to women," she says. The female-only farm in northern NSW, with its policy of "no men, no meat and no machines", exposed Colechin to ideas that were much more radical than she was learning at school. After she graduated in 1976, Colechin and her first girlfriend joined the organising collective for the fourth National Homosexual Conference in Sydney and the Gay Solidarity Group, which organised Australia's first Mardi Gras on 24 June 1978. They had no idea the day would turn into a riot. "We organised a morning march through the streets of Sydney to talk about the fact that we didn't have a right at work to be out and an afternoon talking forum at Paddington Town Hall, where we could have politicians and lawyers talk about the fact that it was still illegal for men to be open about their sexuality." In the evening, they planned to have a celebratory dance down the street and encourage people to join them. With a little trepidation, the group started walking down Oxford Street and calling for people to come "out of the bars and onto the streets" — and many did. The parade numbered around 1,000 LGBTIQ+ people and allies. Colechin says they had a permit to march through Hyde Park, but when they got there, police wouldn't allow the demonstration to continue and started arresting and beating people. "If my girlfriend hadn't kept me in a shop window alcove, I'm sure I would've been arrested because I felt very angry and very concerned about the way people were being arrested — there was no way to identify the police involved. "People being thrown against paddy wagons was absolutely frightening." That night 53 people were arrested. Many had their names, addresses and professions published by the media over the following days. Many lost their jobs as a result, while others, heavy with the shame and terror of being outed, took their own lives. Colechin and a group of others collected money to bail out their friends. "In those days, there were no mobile phones, no [ATMs] to take money out. So we had to collect money from people's houses — from kitty money, from rent money — to make everyone's bail," she says. Reflecting nearly 50 years later, Colechin says in some ways the experience was "incredibly unifying". "We'd come as a community. Lesbians and gay men didn't necessarily interact a lot, maybe occasionally in the bars, but because of that riot, we really came together and supported each other for those next few months. It was an incredible period of time, and I feel incredibly proud to have been part of it. But the community feeling didn't necessarily last for Colechin, who began to distance herself from the annual Mardi Gras parade because she felt it was becoming commercialised. "When I became involved again and organised a protest for the 20th anniversary, a lot of people said to us that we brought the politics back into the parade. Katherine Wolfgramme says she was an extremely effeminate child. When she announced to her family that she was transitioning from a man to a woman, they weren't surprised, but they were shocked she looked pretty as a girl. Born in Fiji in 1972, Wolfgramme moved to Australia with her family when she was two years old. As a child, she was punished for expressing her true gender identity. "Every fibre of my body believed I was a girl," she says. "I was told if I transitioned, I would be ugly, I would end up [on] the streets, I would always be alone, no one would love me. "But the need to transition was so great that it would not have mattered to me what I Iooked like. I wouldn't have cared if I looked like a truck driver." She started to live as Katherine from the age of 18 and moved from the family home into a squat in the centre of Melbourne. In 1990, a trip to Sydney for the annual Sleaze Ball — an elaborate queer party that was one of the main fundraisers for the Mardi Gras parade — would prove formative and encourage her to become involved in transgender advocacy and visibility, which she has spent the last 35 years active in. "It was the first time I'd actually seen transgender women dining openly and feeling safe and comfortable to be able to shop and everything else. I knew Sydney had to be my home." But safety was a key concern for the transgender community, who weren't protected under federal anti-discrimination laws until 2013. Wolfgramme says the community faced "not being allowed to go to school, not being allowed a roof over our heads, being bashed [and] not getting work". Many people also weren't able to legally change their names, which, as well as feeling dehumanising, made it risky to travel abroad with a passport that didn't match one's gender presentation. Wolfgramme made history in 1997 as the first transgender person to legally change their name in Fiji, but she says she was motivated partly by love. " After several years on hormones, I developed into a beautiful young woman and I landed myself a very nice eligible man. He wanted me to travel with him, but I couldn't travel under a male name because I didn't want to embarrass him." Deciding to contact the Fijian government to change her identity documents, she first started ringing its embassy in Canberra but they stopped answering her daily phone calls. She flew to Fiji but the government refused to see her and she was stuck in a hotel for weeks. A call to Wolfgramme's uncle in Fiji was a turning point: he used his connections to secure an appointment for her with a government contact, and she was eventually allowed her to change her name. She says having the support of her Fijian family not only helped her secure a new legal name but has been a great comfort throughout her life, with many relatives commenting on how much she looks like her mother. "Transgender people are a part of life in most Pacific cultures. It's not encouraged, but it's not treated as if they don't exist and it differs between cultures as well," Wolgramme says, adding that discrimination against transgender people can often be attributed to colonisation. "Colonial cultures sexualise anything that is outside of their norms." Yet Wolfgramme says she feels optimistic about the progress that's been made, particularly in Australia. She says in her 53 years, she has seen the "pendulum of politics swing two steps forward and one step back" enough times to feel assured that any attempts to erode transgender rights won't be supported by Australians. "We have a way to go, of course, but the way to go is far closer than going back. I'm constantly amazed at what we've achieved." KL Joy says a conversation with one of their sibling's children seven years ago completely changed their life. The 55-year-old is an archivist, historian, person with disabilities and student living in Ballarat, Victoria. "I always knew I was queer; I went through all the labels. I think I've got the L, the G, the B, the T but 'genderqueer' is what I'm connecting with at the moment," they say of their identity. At 47, Joy became the first Australian to enter the International Miss Bootblack competition: a competition that celebrates queer leather culture and the practice of bootblacking, which Joy describes as "shoe-shining with soul". This led to "some feelings around gender" for Joy and not long after that, they had a conversation with their nibling (a gender-neutral term for the child of one's sibling). "They mentioned the term gender non-conforming and I was like 'ooh what's that?' It was like a crucible. It cracked me open to change me in ways that I couldn't have expected at that time. Growing up, Joy had always been drawn to androgynous figures like UK singers David Bowie and Annie Lennox, but didn't think they could ever present their gender in that way because they weren't "stick-thin like Bowie". "I wanted people to be unsure if I was a boy or a girl when walking down the street. That was what I needed. And it wasn't until I was 47 that I started to think more about that." Seeking hormone-replacement treatment for menopause, Joy opted to take a dose of testosterone which they say has put them "in a really good frame of mind". Joy is also a parent to a now 18-year-old son, who has been raised as an activist his whole life. The two started campaigning for marriage equality in 2004 when Australia's parliament voted to change the Marriage Act to reinforce the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. Joy says that as they again ramped up campaigning efforts in 2017 ahead of Australia's postal survey, they "copped a lot of flak" and regularly felt they were in "fight or flight" mode, uncertain whether stickers on their car would attract violence or support. "I called that campaign my 100 days of hell," Joy says. "But as hard as it was and as hard as the PTSD about it is, that's probably one of my most positive achievements." Ballarat returned a 70.1 per cent Yes vote. When it was revealed Australia had voted Yes , Joy burst into tears, a bodily reaction that resurfaces when they recall the physical toll of that period. "There was the joy, but it was also the anger at having to go through something like that, the whole country debate and vote on whether or not we were valid citizens." Joy says they're proud that marriage equality campaigning changed Australia for the better. "At 21, queer youth are talking to a complete stranger about their partner and it's normalised. "I think that is one of the things that marriage equality was able to do in a good way." Ross Rahman says a 30-year internal struggle over his sexuality is just starting to ease, thanks to a social group that's "opened his eyes". The 48-year-old finance professional was born in Singapore and raised as a Muslim. It wasn't until he came to Australia to study as an international student at Canberra's Australian National University in 1999 that he started to come to terms with the fact he is gay. "When all my peers at school were pairing off, I was not interested and I was confused because at that point I wasn't interested in boys or girls," he says. Rahman compares Canberra's gay scene at the start of the millennium to a "kiddie pool": It offered a gentle introduction to a new world for him after visiting Sydney and finding its brand of Oxford-Street-centric queer culture "too intense". He moved to Sydney after he graduated but says this was when "his struggles began" with balancing his sexuality and Muslim faith. "A lot of people I spoke to have always chosen one or the other," he says. "Something about me was not willing to give up that faith. I still held on and it was to my own detriment." Rahman experienced a lot of guilt over being gay and felt the only path he had was to face condemnation. "The impression that I had is if I dare bring this up [with family and other Muslims], I might get stoned to death." He says he became very cautious with who he let into his inner circle and created a small "chosen family". "I can count on one hand the number of people I call friends or my family here, but small as they are, they are so precious, they give so much to me," he says. Around 12 months ago, Rahman was feeling very distressed about Israel's war on Gaza and wanted to connect with other Muslims who might also be feeling a sense of solidarity with Palestinians. I didn't have anyone else that I could talk to but I was thinking 'I can't be the only one going through this'. "I did a quick Google search and found Sydney Queer Muslim Network. I don't know why, but it had never occurred to me that an organisation like this existed." He says that although he had his chosen family, when he joined the group, he finally found his "home". "It feels like home, first and foremost, because of the shared experience. "I've met other queer community members who have struggled with their faith, but I have never come across another queer Muslim, so that's a different level of connection because it's so raw." Rahman says meeting other queer Muslims has shifted the rigidity he felt around his faith, "opening his eyes" on ways to navigate two identities. "Everyone has one basic need. Everyone has a story to tell and they just need to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me?' That's it." LGBTIQ+ Australians seeking support with mental health can contact QLife on 1800 184 527 or visit . also has a list of support services. Readers seeking crisis support can ring Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25). More information and support with mental health is available at and on 1300 22 4636. LGBTIQ+ Mardi Gras Australia Share this with family and friends
Sky News AU
30-05-2025
- Sky News AU
Left is ‘pearl-clutching' after UK council removes Ukrainian and Pride flags
Reform UK Councillor Darren Grimes discusses a Reform-led council removing the Pride and the Ukrainian flag. 'The left are absolutely pearl-clutching, shaken to the very floor,' Mr Grimes told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio. 'Local councils need to get back to basics, focusing on things that matter, not international politics.'
ABC News
15-05-2025
- ABC News
Trump meets Syria's interim President
Sabra Lane: Donald Trump's met the new Syrian leader in Saudi Arabia. It's the first meeting between the US and Syrian leaders in 25 years and could mark a major turning point in relations. Mr Trump's on a tour of the Middle East. The US President's flagged he'll lift crippling sanctions on Syria as the country tries to rebuild after decades of dictatorship and civil war. Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran joined me a short time ago. Matthew, why is this meeting so important? Matthew Doran: This would have been unthinkable just a couple of months ago when Ahmed al-Sharaa led the rebels which toppled the Assad regime in Syria up until December last year. He was even subject to a US bounty for his arrest of 10 million US dollars. So not only is this significant just because of who he is, but also because it followed that announcement from Donald Trump of the lifting of those crippling economic sanctions. This is something that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been in his ear about, really wanting him to make this call, something that the international community has been pointing to as a key issue for Syria as it's going through this rebuilding phase following decades of oppressive rule and civil war there. And it appears Donald Trump has listened and that's why this meeting was so incredibly significant. Not only is it important from the economic standpoint, sitting down with the US President also bolsters Ahmed al-Sharaa's own image and his own credentials as a world leader. And it seems like, based on what Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One after the meeting, it seems like the Syrian leader left quite an impression. Young, attractive guy, tough guy, strong pass. Does that worry you at all? He's got a real shot at pulling it together. It's a torn up country. Sabra Lane: And Matt, Donald Trump isn't visiting Israel on this trip, despite his vehement support for Benjamin Netanyahu. Is this a snub for the Israeli Prime Minister? Matthew Doran: I think it certainly can be perceived as such, particularly when Benjamin Netanyahu made such a lot of noise about being the first world leader to travel to Washington to meet with Donald Trump after his inauguration. He's been there since then for a second trip, but Donald Trump hasn't paid him the return visit. And he is, of course, in the neighbourhood and the war in Gaza is casting a very long shadow over Donald Trump's visit to the region. Many Arab leaders very concerned about it. I think it's safe to say that the relationship, the ties between the US and Israel, to use that somewhat overused phrase, it is too big to fail or too important to fail. But there is certainly a frustration and an impatience coming from Washington about how Israel is managing the war in Gaza. The fact that there have not been any breakthroughs on a ceasefire and a further hostage release that was further highlighted earlier this week when the last surviving Israeli-American hostage Adan Alexander was released by Hamas in a goodwill gesture, a decision that was made by Hamas in talks with the US without direct involvement from Israel. Sabra Lane: Matt, just on Gaza, there's been reportedly a huge loss of life in an Israeli strike on a hospital. What can you tell us about that? Matthew Doran: Multiple strikes across Gaza over the last 24 hours, Sabra, but in the south of Gaza, in Khan Younis, there was a significant attack on the European hospital there. We are hearing from Palestinian health authorities that at least 16 people have been killed, more than 70 injured. The Israeli defense force is claiming that there is an underground or was an underground command center built by Hamas underneath that hospital. That is something which Hamas has rejected. But the IDF is quite confident that in that strike, it has managed to kill Hamas's military commander in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, a man who succeeded his brother in that role after his brother was killed. His brother Yahya Sinwar was killed in October last year. That would be a significant achievement for the Israel defense forces. It would, if true, would also cast doubt on Hamas's insistence that it does not use hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as shelters. But it is another example of Israel repeatedly attacking things like hospitals in its bid to target Hamas, something which is outlawed under international law. Sabra Lane: Matthew Doran there.
