Turkey: Football Referee, Barred for Being Homosexual, Fights for Rights

Turkey's football authorities are at the center of a developing scandal, in which the dropping of a referee is turning into a civil rights test case. The referee at the center of the case, Halil Ibrahim Dincdag, maintains he was let go because of his homosexuality, and he is challenging the Turkish Football Federation's decision in a local court.

"They thought I was an ant that they could crush, they thought I would run away and hide in a corner," said Dincdag, who filed a discrimination suit in early June. "But they have destroyed my life and I will fight them to the end, all the way to Europe if I have to."

A 33-year old from the Black Sea town of Trabzon, Dincdag had been refereeing in the local league for 13 years when he was informed in May that his license would not be renewed. Two days after he complained to the Football Federation about his dismissal, stories about him began appearing in the national press.

Sacked by the local radio station where he worked and forced to flee to Istanbul to spare his family from a media feeding frenzy, he decided to appear on a popular sports program. His face hidden at first, Dincdag, who until then had been referred to only by his initials, came out publicly.

"The day the press started writing about me, I went into a coma, and the day I appeared on TV I died," he says, in his lawyer's office on the Asian side of Istanbul. "They took 32 years of my life away. Since then, I have been trying to resurrect myself."

Dincdag's television appearance was an act of considerable courage. Unlike in some other Muslim countries, homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, but homophobia is widespread, and nowhere more so than in the ultra-masculine world of football.

"The crowds shout 'fag' at referees whose decisions they don't like," Dincdag says. "Well, here I am."

His principled stance has won him a lot of support. He says that three-quarters of Trabzon's 80 referees telephoned him to offer support, and 30,000 people have signed a petition launched by Turkey's most influential newspaper backing his campaign. Members of parliament even brought his case up on the floor of the legislature.

Most importantly for Dincdag, his pious family, from whom he had kept his homosexuality secret, stood behind him. He describes talking to his sister, a theology graduate who is currently writing a doctorate about Dostoevsky and the philosophy of religion. "I asked her if all those Islamic principles I'd fulfilled, all those prayers, were for nothing -- am I condemned simply because I'm gay," he says. "She told me the only unpardonable sin was murder."

Caught off balance by the outcry, Turkey's Football Federation has responded slowly to the backlash. Dincdag's sacking had nothing to do with his sexual orientation, Federation Vice-President Lutfi Aribogan told the mass-market daily Hurriyet on June 11. It was the "emotional" response of a referee who lacked the "talent" to be promoted to the professional leagues.

A day later, Oguz Sarvan, the head of the referee's board said the door remained open for Dincdag to return to refereeing. He went on to imply that it was Dincdag's lawyer who leaked his name to the media, not the Federation.

"Do they have no fear of God?" Dincdag asked, pointing to a sheaf of match reports dating back a decade that show him to have ranked among the best local referees. His requests for a meeting with the federation's board have so far gone unanswered, as have his letters to the minister of sport and the Turkish parliament's Human Rights Committee. "They found it easy enough to get together to sack me," he says bitterly, referring to the Federation. "Why can't they find the time to get together to apologize?"

Emboldened by Turkey's European Union accession bid, the Turkish gay and lesbian rights lobby has become increasingly outspoken over the past decade. But activists say it has reached a standstill on certain issues. "For years, the European Union has been talking about the importance of legislation on sexual discrimination in the workplace," says Ali Erol, a spokesman for KAOS-GL, an Ankara-based gay and lesbian rights group. "So far Turkey has not taken one step forward. For us, this is the key to Halil Ibrahim Dincdag's case."

Erol also points to another crucial aspect of Dincdag's story that is under-reported in Turkey. His problems with the federation began after he made use of an administrative loophole which enables gay men to exempt themselves from otherwise compulsory military service. Turkey's military still defines homosexuality as a "disease," and army psychologists described Dincdag as suffering from a "psycho-sexual disorder."

Late in May, Turkey's soccer federation issued a statement saying that, while men barred from military service for health reasons would still be considered unsuitable as referees, homosexuality was an exception to the rule.

Erol says the statement changes nothing for the vast majority of gay men who -- like Dincdag -- want to avoid military service but are not courageous enough to face the consequences. "Many gay men are faced with the same dilemma: if I get a medical report to avoid serving, will it affect my career?" Erol says. Certain professions like the police or teaching, Erol adds, are de facto closed to men who use their homosexuality to exempt themselves from serving.

But old-fashioned views of homosexuality aren't just the preserve of Turkey's powerful military. Speaking on television shortly after Dincdag came out, Turkey's most popular football commentator Erman Toroglu, himself a former referee, said he didn't think the 33-year old should be given his job back.

"I reckon [homosexual referees] would have a tendency to give more penalties to good-looking, tough footballers," Toroglu said.

Halil Ibrahim Dincdag's eyes glaze over with anger at the recollection. "Does Toroglu assault every pretty girl he passes in the street," he asks.