ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Turkish police detained at least 200 demonstrators in Istanbul late on Saturday, after over 3,000 women marking International Women’s Day marched through the city center, the march organizers said. 

The Feminist Night March - the 23rd of its kind - has been banned on grounds that it would endanger national and social security. 

Despite the ban, the march every year takes place at Taksim Square and Istiklal Street, with most of the time ending with a police crackdown on the protesters. 

"After the #FeministNightMarch finished and the crowd dispersed without incident, the police started to detain our friends in an act of provocation," the march organizers wrote on X.

"Nearly 200 women were unjustly detained on March 8!" they added.

There was no immediate comment from Istanbul’s local authorities. 

The women wearing purple raised slogans such as "We won't be silenced, we're not afraid and we won't obey" and "Long live our feminist struggle”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2022 pulled his country out of the Istanbul Convention, which requires countries to set up laws aimed at preventing and prosecuting violence against women.

An estimated 1,300 women have been killed by men since Turkey withdrew from the convention in March 2021, according to figures gathered by the We Will Stop Femicide Platform rights organization.