Policemen rush to leave Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Nearly 1,600 policemen rushed to end their terms with the Istanbul Police Directorate in favor of relocating to eastern provinces on June 21, hours after authorities allowed deployment of policemen on will, days after freezing all deployments and vacations due to the ongoing Gezi protests.

Around 2,200 police officers had been assigned to posts in eastern provinces, before authorities suspended all deployment, hours before some of the officers were set to leave the city. The policemen were caught off guard by the decision, since most of them had already rented houses in the assigned cities.