'The Lady In Red' In Turkey

Turmoil in Turkey has entered its fifth straight day as protests over the destruction of trees in a public park morphed into an indictment of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.

And the "lady in red" — a woman who was sprayed directly in the face with teargas by a policeman on May 28 in Gezi Park of Taksim Square — has become the symbol of the dissidents.

The description of the photo by Reuters nails it (emphasis ours):

In her red cotton summer dress, necklace and white bag slung over her shoulder she might have been floating across the lawn at a garden party; but before her crouches a masked policeman firing teargas spray that sends her long hair billowing upwards.

Endlessly shared on social media and replicated as a cartoon on posters and stickers, the image of the woman in red has become the leitmotif for female protesters during days of violent anti-government demonstrations in Istanbul.

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