A REFEREE dismissed and outed by Turkey’s Football Federation has become an unwitting figurehead of the country’s gay rights movement after he took his case to the courts and media.
Stories about Halil Ibrahim Dincdag (33) began appearing in the national media in May two days after he wrote a letter to the federation questioning his dismissal.
Instead of hiding himself away, Mr Dincdag, who has been ref-ereeing local matches in his northern Turkish hometown of Trabzon since he was 20, appeared on a popular sports programme to argue his case.
“They thought I was an ant that they could crush,” he says, sitting in his lawyer’s Istanbul office. “But they have destroyed my life and I will fight them to the end.”
Homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, but homophobia is widespread, and Mr Dincdag’s courageous decision brought him a wave of support.
One columnist compared him to Harvey Milk. He says 80 per cent of his referee colleagues rang him up to congratulate him. His family, deeply pious, stood behind him.
Mr Dincdag’s refusal to disappear took the federation by surprise. Federation vice-president Lutfi Aribogan said last week that he had been sacked for lack of “talent”. Mr Dincdag countered with a mountain of match reports.
A day later, the head of Turkey’s referee board said the door remained open for him to return to the fold, and blamed Dincdag’s lawyer for outing him.
For members of Turkey’s gay and lesbian rights movement, which has become increasingly outspoken over the past decade, Mr Dincdag’s case is a crucial one.
“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.” Mr Erol points to another crucial aspect of Dincdag’s story: his problems with the federation began after he made use of a loophole which exempts gay men from compulsory military service.
Turkey’s military still defines homosexuality as a “disease”. “Many gay men are faced with the same dilemma: if I get a medical report to avoid serving, will it affect my career?” Mr Erol asks. “In Dincdag’s case, it did.”
But Turkey’s soldiers aren’t the only ones with outdated views.
Interviewed on television, Erman Toroglu, the country’s most popular football commentator, said he didn’t think Mr Dincdag should get his job back.
Gay referees, he said, “would have a tendency to give more penalties to good-looking, tough footballers”. “Does Toroglu assault every pretty girl he passes in the street?” Mr Dincdag riposted angrily.
The referee was also forced from his job as a radio presenter.
“The day the press started writing about me, I went into a coma, and the day I appeared on TV I died,” he says.
“Since then, I have been trying to resurrect myself.”