Yahoo – AFP, Stuart Williams, December 29, 2015
Hali Ibrahim Dincdag had been a referee in the Trabzon region in northern Turkey but had his licence revoked in 2009 after publicly coming out as gay (AFP Photo/Juan Mabromata) |
Istanbul
(AFP) - A Turkish court on Tuesday ordered the Turkish Football Federation
(TFF) to pay thousands of dollars in compensation after it revoked the
refereeing licence of a local referee on the grounds that he was gay.
The
Istanbul court ordered the TFF to pay 23,000 Turkish Lira ($7,900) in material
and moral compensation over its treatment of Halil Ibrahim Dincdag, the Dogan
news agency reported.
However the
sum was lower than the 110,000 Turkish Lira ($38,000) demanded by Dincdag's
lawyers, in a case that had become a symbol of discrimination against gays and
lesbians in largely conservative and overwhelmingly Muslim Turkish society.
The TFF had
said that since he was exempt from military service due to his homosexuality,
Dincdag fell into the army's classification of "unfit" and thus
unable to do the job of refereeing.
Dincdag had
been a referee in the Trabzon region on the Black Sea region but had his
licence revoked in 2009 after publicly coming out as gay.
'Break
the taboo'
"This
lawsuit was a case in favour of all people who suffered injustice and
discrimination," Dincdag told the Diken online news website.
"Winning
this case was really something very important. The court has now confirmed that
my fight was a right."
"I
hope that this decision sets a precedent for similar cases. This is a
victory."
However
Dincdag and his lawyer Firat Soyle said that they would appeal the verdict to be
awarded the full amount of compensation demanded in the lawsuit.
Turkish
football referee Halil Ibrahim Dincdag, pictured in 2009 after he
came out as a
homosexual in a television broadcast (AFP Photo/Bulent Kilic)
|
"We
are happy that justice has been done but we are going to appeal regarding the
figure to be paid," the lawyer said, quoted by Turkish media. "Given
the moral and material damages suffered, it is a small figure."
"December
29, 2015 is a victory in the fight against homophobia in football and also a
victory for the LGBT movement in Turkey," he added. "We have to break
the taboo on football over homophobia with this decision."
Turkish media
said that Dincdag had been a football referee in Trabzon for 13 years when his
license was revoked in 2009 and has been unable to officiate at any match
since.
He also
lost his job as radio presenter on a sports show on a local station.
The issue
of homosexuality in football, by far the most popular sport in Turkey, remains
a virtually untouched topic in the macho society.
The
military's attitude to homosexuality has also been controversial, with gays
needing to undergo nude examinations to prove they qualified for an exemption
for military service due to their sexuality.
However
Turkish media reports last month said that this requirement had now been
dropped and only verbal declarations would now be taken into consideration.
Homosexuality
has been legal in Turkey throughout the period of the modern republic and was
also legalised in the Ottoman Empire from the mid-nineteenth century. But gays
in Turkey regularly complain of harassment and abuse.
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