Türkiye’s “My Family Is Safe” crackdown has reached one of the best-known LGBTI+ organisations in Istanbul. Prosecutors want SPoD, the Social Policy, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association, closed for good. Four people linked to it could face prison.

The first hearing is Wednesday, November 18.

What prosecutors are asking for

In an indictment dated November 2, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office asked for SPoD to be dissolved, Turkish Minute reported, citing the LGBTI+ news site Kaos GL. Four people face one to three years in prison under Türkiye’s Law on Associations. Turkish Minute says two of them have been in pretrial detention since September 16.

Başka Gazete identifies the four as founders of the association and says the charge is founding or running an association that is prohibited or whose purpose is a crime.

The İstanbul 27th Criminal Court of First Instance has accepted the indictment. The hearing is set for 13:30 at the Çağlayan Courthouse.

What the indictment says SPoD did wrong

According to SPoD, prosecutors claim the group acted outside its own bylaws and that its activities were “contrary to law and morality.” Two examples stand out:

  • Work on equal employment for LGBTI+ people, which the indictment describes as creating “division within the state.”
  • Online solidarity networks against discrimination.

Başka Gazete reports that the file draws on a provincial inspection report, gendarmerie financial reports, a review by MASAK (Türkiye’s financial crimes investigation board), searches of the association’s premises, its ledger and its social media. The posts cited include one for April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day and one for Lesbian Visibility Day. The indictment also argues that children could reach the content without filters.

It adds up foreign funding too: $1,570,692 received between 2012 and 2026, which prosecutors link to activities they say went beyond the group’s statute.

Read that list again. Helping LGBTI+ people find work without discrimination, posting on Lesbian Visibility Day, and receiving grants are being presented as grounds to shut an organisation down.

Who SPoD is

SPoD was founded in 2011 to give LGBTI+ people legal and psychosocial support. In its response, it said it has spent more than 15 years working so LGBTI+ people can live free from discrimination and violence, and that this work is now being used as grounds for closure.

Its message was short: “Organizing is not a crime; it is a right.” SPoD says the case threatens freedom of association for everyone, and it has asked rights groups, unions, professional associations and journalists to attend on November 18.

The third closure case in under two months

SPoD is at least the third LGBTI+ group prosecutors have moved to close since September. The first two were in Mersin: Muamma LGBTİ+ and Mersin 7 Renk LGBTİ+, both swept up in the September “My Family Is Safe” operation.

That operation began in September with online restrictions and police raids. SPoD was among the Istanbul groups named when the raids began. Since then, UN experts have spoken out and new raids have targeted trans women over their social media posts.

Authorities say they are protecting children, families and public order. President Erdoğan and the ruling AKP have increasingly described LGBTQ movements as a threat to “traditional family values” and have declared 2026–2035 the “Decade of Family and Population,” Turkish Minute notes.

In September, more than 450 civil society organisations from 65 countries called on Türkiye to stop criminalising LGBTQ advocacy.

Why this case matters beyond SPoD

Arrests hurt people. Closing organisations hurts a whole community over time. Groups like SPoD are where people go for a lawyer, a counsellor, or documentation of a hate crime. If the court dissolves it, that support doesn’t move somewhere else. It disappears.

There’s also the precedent. Same-sex relationships are not a crime in Türkiye. A ruling that equal-employment work and awareness-day posts make an association unlawful would give prosecutors a template for going after any group that does this work.

What happens next

  • November 18, 13:30: first hearing at the İstanbul 27th Criminal Court of First Instance, Çağlayan.
  • Two defendants remain in pretrial detention, according to Turkish Minute.
  • The Mersin closure cases against Muamma and 7 Renk are separate proceedings.

We’ll follow the hearing. Until then: share reporting from Turkish LGBTI+ outlets, not photos or names of people in the courtroom.

Sources: Turkish Minute (Nov 11, 2026, citing Kaos GL); Başka Gazete (Nov 2026). Photo: CeeGee, Istanbul Palace of Justice (Çağlayan), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.