JINHA

ISTANBUL – Women blocked a public transit lane in Istanbul to protest the blockades of cities in Kurdistan and the state’s murder of women. Police arrested four protestors and brutalized journalists covering the event.

Activists from the women’s group New Democratic Woman (YDK), accompanied by young women from the group YDG, held an action today to call attention to the Turkish state’s killing of women in Kurdistan.

The women occupied a bus rapid transit lane at Istanbul’s major transit hub of Mecidiyeköy. They opened a banner covered in the names of the women who have been killed in the Turkish state’s sieges and assaults on cities in Kurdistan, bearing the slogan “the slain women are our rebellion.”

“They’re killing women and children in Cizre and Nusaybin. Those who yesterday cooperated with the gang Daesh as it covered the Middle East in blood are today carrying out massacres in Kurdistan,” said the women.

Women were dragged off the bus lane by security officers and attacked with racist insults by individuals who initially identified themselves as plainclothes police. Members of the crowd formed a barricade to protect the women for around 30 minutes until police, who had stood by watching the racist attacks, moved in to arrest the women.

The police arrested four women protestors. Police attempted to arrest one reporter covering the events and assaulted another.

(fk/cm)