Donning shorts and defending their right to dress as they please, women’s rights advocates in Turkey have rallied in defence of a nurse, attacked on a bus in Istanbul this month by a man who reportedl
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Donning shorts and defending their right to dress as they please, women’s rights advocates in Turkey have rallied in defence of a nurse, attacked on a bus in Istanbul this month by a man who reportedly said he found her clothes inappropriate.
Allowed to go free, the alleged attacker was only rearrested after an outcry on social media.
Woman kicked on Istanbul bus for wearing shorts ‘suffering psychological trauma’ https://t.co/4uQhJ459qr pic.twitter.com/z9xFUFmJcz
— Hürriyet Daily News (@HDNER) 22 septembre 2016
Men joined Sunday’s protest in the city.
“Of course we condemn this attack,” said Akin Ozcan Aksoy, 21.
“Such things should not be taking place. We should show the same reaction if the same were done to a woman who was covered up and not just one in shorts. But the direction our country is headed makes me think we will encounter more of these stories.”
Turkey is divided in its dress code.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party he founded, their roots in political Islam, have tried to restore the role of religion in public life. They have expanded religious education and allowed the head scarf, once banned from state offices, to be worn in colleges and parliament.