ISTANBUL: A Turkish man assaulted a young woman on an Istanbul bus for wearing shorts during Ramazan, images showed on Wednesday, sparking a furore among women’s rights activists.

University student Asena Melisa Saglam was travelling on the bus when the man seated behind her struck her in the face, images published by Turkish media showed. She responded by chasing after him but he grabbed her and slung her to the back of the bus before running out of the vehicle.

Saglam said that throughout the journey the man had been verbally harassing her by saying she should not be wearing shorts during Ramazan.

The man was detained but following questioning — in which he reportedly said he had been “provoked” — he was set free, causing a new outcry.

“The release of the attacker is a threat to all women,” the women’s rights organisation We Will Stop Femicide Platform wrote on Twitter. “We will wear whatever we want outside. We will not give up our freedoms.”

Following the outcry, an order was given to re-arrest the man but it was not immediately clear if he had been detained again.

Opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuse the government of presiding over a creeping Islamisation of Turkey. But the government insists it has not impeded the freedom of Turkish women to dress as they please.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2017