A Struggle for Existence: Pride Marches and the Right to Peaceful Assembly in Turkey is a policy paper prepared by Umut Rojda Yıldırım within the scope of the project “Meydan: Reclaiming Freedom of Assembly and Public Space,” carried out by the Hafıza Merkezi with the support of the European Union.

As part of our work in the field of Supporting Human Rights Organizations and Defenders since 2018, this project aims to analyze the legal, political, and administrative obstacles to the freedom of peaceful assembly in Turkey and to contribute to the struggle to reclaim public spaces. In this context, the first of the policy papers we published sought to make visible the structural problems that render the right to freedom of assembly effectively unusable in Turkey, drawing on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Constitutional Court (AYM).

In the second policy paper in the series, we address the struggle of LGBTI+ individuals—one of the groups whose visibility in public space is most restricted in Turkey—to exercise their right to peaceful assembly.

A STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE: PRIDE MARCHES AND THE RIGHT TO PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY IN TURKEY by Hakikat Adalet Hafıza Merkezi