IN A brutal operation by the state, armed police attacked women protesting in defence of the Istanbul Convention in the Turkish capital Ankara and other cities on Saturday, with scores arrested.

They had taken to the streets in defence of women’s rights and in memory of Deniz Poyraz, the young Kurdish woman shot dead by a Turkish fascist at the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) provincial offices in Izmir on Thursday.

Riot police armed with machine guns blocked women as they gathered in Ankara, hauling a number into custody while preventing people from filming them under draconian new legislation that bars the recording of police and security officials.