Turkish police carried out raids and arrests across 15 provinces on Saturday, targeting the homes and gathering places of LGBTQ+ activists in operations authorities linked to the protection of the traditional family.

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said legal proceedings had been brought against 162 suspects, nine associations and 13 companies as part of what he described on X as the “My Family is Safe” operations, carried out jointly by police and gendarmerie forces in provinces including Istanbul and Ankara.

Gurlek did not specify how many people had been arrested, but said the operations formed part of the “Decade of the Family”, a policy declared by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan aimed at protecting “our children, the institution of the family and the social order”.

In Istanbul, police raided a gay bar and a nightclub regarded as a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, according to footage released by pro-government media.

A men’s hammam was also targeted in the operation.

The LGBT rights organisation Kaos GL said “more than ten” of its members had been arrested following police searches of their homes, adding that officers also searched the association’s offices.

The group said it was being targeted primarily on charges of “insulting public decency”. Kaos GL’s account on X, along with those of around fifteen other LGBT organisations and activists, had already been blocked in Turkey the previous day at the request of the authorities.

Homosexuality is not criminalised under Turkish law, though hostility towards LGBT people remains widespread at senior levels of government. Erdogan has repeatedly described LGBT people as “perverted” and accused the community of contributing to the country’s declining birth rate.

Istanbul MP Ozgul Sakı, of the left wing pro-Kurdish DEM party, responded on X, stating “existence cannot be banned or prevented” and adding that “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights”.