by Rex Wockner
International News Briefs
Around 100 members of the Black Pink Triangle Association in Izmir, Turkey, staged a candlelight vigil April 28 following the killing of transgender member Azra.
Azra "was murdered by a gunshot to the back of her head … in what seems to be a serial murder," said Hossein Alizadeh of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
"Turkish authorities believe that the murder weapon used in this case was the same that took the lives of two other transgender people in Izmir," he said.
For more information, see http://siyahpembe.org/?p=578.
Meanwhile, a local court on April 30 rejected an official attempt to close down the Black Pink Triangle Association.
Judge Mursel Ermis declared that "homosexuals are free to found associations like all other people."
Izmir officials had targeted the group for dissolution on the grounds that it violated morals and harmed Turkish families.
Two other leading gay organizations – Lambda Istanbul and Ankara's KAOS GL – also have beat back local governments' attempts to shut them down.
