For decades, March 8, International Women’s Day, has been celebrated in Turkey as a nonpartisan, colorful, fun day of parades. Women from all walks of life gather in city centers to sing songs of solidarity and dance to Turkish folk music with feminist slogans. Celebrations are held not only on March 8, but on the weekend approaching Women’s Day.

This year on March 4, news broke that all parades for Women’s Day in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa were banned. Then other cities’ provinces, such as Ankara and Istanbul, announced similar bans. The official reason was for the security of women. However, women’s groups were not convinced.

Al-Monitor spoke with members of the Ankara Women’s Platform, which was one of the many civil society groups involved in the events of March 8. Women from the platform informed Al-Monitor that their representative, Yurdagul Boztas, had made an announcement explaining why they do not respect the ban. Boztas said that for years they have marched on that route in Ankara with no problems. Boztas also brought up some of the recent security failures in Turkey, such as suicide bombers, ongoing curfews in the southeastern cities, increasing numbers of rapes and cases of sexual harassment, and skyrocketing numbers of women’s murders, and asked, “With all these, how can you ask women to remain silent and not to take to the streets?”

So women took to the streets March 6, and also March 8. On March 6, several videos and photos appeared on social media showing their purple signs, songs and dances. In Ankara, there were announcements in Kurdish, Arabic as well as Turkish. They chanted, “Woman, life, freedom” and “The bans are yours, March 8 is ours.” Their songs called for female solidarity and the toppling of the Justice and Development Party. Their banners read, “Cinderella don’t go to the ball, come march with us,” “Prince charming on white horse need not knock on my door,” “Found Prince Charming and decided not to marry, got pregnant and decided not to have the baby,” and most of all, they asked for peace. In Ankara, police asked them not to assemble at their original meeting spot. Initially there were more police than women on the streets. Yet remaining calm and replying to the security forces’ calls with songs, the women resisted. One member of Ankara Women’s Platform told Al-Monitor, “Police had to cave in, as our numbers increased and we kept singing and chanting. They finally closed the road and asked us to parade down to another corner. As we did, more women joined us on the road. Initially, male friends offered to come with us, saying they would protect us from the police. We told them, if you guys come, we will not march.”