Mabel Matiz’s “Ha Leylim” music video – YouTube Screenshot
Turkish prosecutors are seeking to charge queer pop star Mabel Matiz with obscenity over a scene showing two men — clothed and not touching — dancing together in the music video for his song “Ha Leylim.”
If convicted, Matiz, an LGBTQ rights advocate, could face six months to three years in prison and a fine, reports Turkish Minute.
The music video depicts a wedding, with Matiz and the groom looking at each other throughout. At the end, as other guests lie exhausted on the ground, the two continue dancing with rapid arm movements and gyrating their hips. But the men never touch.
Matiz, whose real name is Fatih Karaca, was detained and questioned about the video in August. He denied that the video was obscene.
“Two people looking at each other and dancing together is not a crime,” he reportedly told authorities, adding that the men could be looking at one another with love, anger, or resentment.
He said the scene was a matter of art and accused prosecutors of attempting to attach criminal meaning to his work because of his identity as an openly queer artist.
Matiz was released after questioning in August but remains under a travel ban, which prosecutors left in place when submitting the indictment.
This is the second obscenity case Matiz has faced over the past year. In 2025, prosecutors charged him over the lyrics of his song “Perperişan” after the Family and Social Services Ministry sought to have the song blocked, citing public order, public health and family values.
An Istanbul court acquitted him in May, finding that the state had failed to make its case.
The new indictment comes amid Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on LGBTQ visibility, with authorities raiding businesses and nightclubs, arresting dozens of people, and confiscating electronic devices.
Rights groups say the broader operation — dubbed “My Family is Safe” — seeks to criminalize LGBTQ identity and suppress LGBTQ visibility. Erdogan has blamed Turkey’s LGBTQ community for the country’s falling birth rate.
To combat that decline — while simultaneously pandering to his conservative base — Erdogan issued a 10-year executive order that establishes government monitoring of population changes and birth patterns, while prioritizing policies designed to make it easier to marry, purchase homes, and raise children.
Last month, police raided LGBTQ bars, the offices of LGBTQ organizations, and the homes of known activists across 12 provinces, and blocked access to dozens of websites or social media accounts of LGBTQ organizations and individuals. At least 16 people are being prosecuted for their activism.
Additionally, journalist Tuğba Tekerek has been jailed for writing an article about the queer community in the nearby nation of Georgia for the LGBTQ news outlet Kaos GL.
Earlier this week, a Turkish court shut down the T24 independent news outlet and its social media accounts after prosecutors cited 118 items published over the past year that they characterized as promoting “LGBT propaganda,” as reported by global news wire service Agence France-Presse.
While Turkey has no laws explicitly banning homosexuality, prosecutors have accused LGBTQ activists and news outlets of inappropriately influencing children and underage youth to identify as LGBTQ or accept homosexuality and gender-nonconformity as valid.
Critics say that the “My Family is Safe” campaign is Erdogan’s attempt to hold onto power, ramping up for a general election in April 2028. Notably, as Reuters reported, the shutdown of T24 comes as Turkey has blocked more than 140 accounts of journalists and news outlets that reported on the country’s ongoing financial crisis.
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