The third part of the report, in which we, as the Civic Space Research Association, scanned and analyzed the news about the representation of university students and universities in the pro-government media throughout 2022, continues with the title “Targeting and Hate Speech against LGBTI+ Students”.

As it can be seen in the first two parts of the University in the News report series, students were frequently defined as “enemies of religion” and “terrorists” due to the events they organized, press statements they made or protests they participated in.

In the third part, we take a closer look at the news about LGBTI+ students who are targeted directly on the basis of their identity and existence. LGBTI+ people were reported in pro-government media with a discourse full of hate speech. The most used word in this news was “perverted”, for example. The fact that LGBTI+ people are often referred to as a terrorist organization or a political party also stands out in the news. In addition, LGBTI+ students are positioned against the concepts of religion and family in the news we analyzed.7