Lambda Istanbul gives pinkwashing award to IGLYO
July 6, 2011From Lambda Istanbul:
Every year at Pride, Lambda Istanbul organizes The Genetically Modified Tomato Awards to honour
the most homo/transphobic statements or acts of the year. The awards ceremony got its name from
a statement by Turkish football star Erman Toroglu who once said that eating genetically
modified food can turn you gay.
This year a special “Pinkwashing” Award was given to the IGLYO, the International Lesbian Gay
Bisexual Transgender and Queer Youth and Student Organization. IGLYO is holding it’s general
assembly in Tel Aviv December 2011.
Accepting the award on behalf of IGLYO, Kemal Ordek from Pink Life in Ankara explained that
Pink Life is a member of IGLYO but that it had protested the decision to hold the meeting in Tel
Aviv and plans to boycott it. “This award goes to the board of IGLYO,” he explained. “They
haven’t listened to LGBT groups from around the world. They say that we should stay neutral on
political questions. We are not neutral. The people who get killed in Palestine are not just
heterosexuals.”
