Turkish police on Sunday barred women’s groups from marching in İstanbul’s Taksim and Kadıköy districts for International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the Turkish media reported.
Women groups gathered in the two areas around 5 p.m. local time to march to honor women who lost their lives in incidents of domestic violence.
However, police only allowed them to read their statements and used pepper spray and their shields to stop the women from proceeding.
Last year thousands of women had marched down Taksim’s İstiklal Street despite an ongoing state of emergency that was terminated in July two years after a failed coup. According to the Interior Ministry 393 women in Turkey have been murdered in domestic violence since January 2017.
