Turkey: arrests during the forbidden Pride march in Istanbul

Police officers try to prevent the pride march after it was banned by local authorities, on June 26, 2022 in Istanbul.

© UMIT BEKTAS/REUTERS

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Dozens of arrests in Turkey before the start of the Pride march in the streets of Istanbul.

A parade banned by the governor of the city, as it has been regularly for several years, officially for security reasons.

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With our correspondent in Istanbul,

In the morning, the police moved in and blocked streets for several hundred meters beyond the meeting place.

Some demonstrators told me that they had been there since 9am for a demonstration that was supposed to start at 5pm.

Two hours before the demonstration, activists and journalists were arrested, often very violently.

Some were pushed or thrown to the ground.

According to the authorities, there are currently around fifty arrests.

Among those arrested is currently a photographer from Agence France-Presse.

In silence to escape the police

Police were everywhere and a helicopter was dispatched to the scene to monitor the parade.

Despite this, a few hundred people managed to make their way through the very rough streets of the neighborhood.

The demonstrators, mostly quite young, marched for almost an hour.

They played cat and mouse with the police, even asking the motorcade to be quiet to march in silence so as not to attract the attention of the police.

►Also read: In Turkey, a very disrupted LGBT pride march, many scuffles

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