Turkish police detain five Syrians while staging Taksim protest for Iranian woman

ISTANBUL

Turkish police have detained five Syrians in a group that attempted to stage a protest at Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square to commemorate the death of an Iranian Kurdish woman.

Farinaz Khosrawani, 25, fell to her death from the 4th floor of a hotel in Iran’s Kurdish-majority city of Mahanad on May 4, after an alleged rape attempt by an Intelligence Ministry employee, according to Iranian Kurdish media.

On May 10, around 100 Syrians of Kurdish-origin gathered at noon at Taksim Square, marching with Khosrawani’s photos and flags of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG), Doğan News Agency reported.



Turkish police, who recently used a heavy hand to close the square to May Day demonstrators on May 1, initially tried to remove the flags from the protesters’ hands. Five demonstrators who resisted the police were detained amid a scuffle, before they were dispersed.

Khosrawani’s death has also sparked unrest in the KRG, as police used tear gas to remove hundreds of protesters in Erbil, after they torched a hotel on May 7.