POLICE DISPERSES MAY 1 RALLY IN ISTANBUL

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.05.2008 14:02 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish riot police fired water cannon and tear
gas in clashes with crowds gathering for an outlawed May Day rally
in Istanbul on Thursday, detaining hundreds at a time of heightened
political tensions in Turkey.

Thousands of police were stationed across the centre of Turkey’s
largest city to block access to its main Taksim Square. Three major
trade union confederations had pledged to mobilize up to 500,000
people in defiance of an official ban.

Officials banned the rally due to intelligence reports that radical
groups planned to stage violent protests.

Leftists and Kurdish separatists frequently clash with police at
protests.

Strains surrounding the traditional May Day demonstrations of workers’
unity were heightened this year by union opposition to a recently
passed reform of the social security system which sharply raises the
retirement age.

Police drove armored personnel carriers down the city’s main pedestrian
street, while security personnel in body armor fired tear gas at masked
protestors who had ripped up bricks from the pavement to lob at police.

The clashes came amid growing political tensions triggered by
a prosecutor’s bid to close the ruling AK Party and ban 71 party
officials including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for alleged Islamist
activities.

The unions later abandoned plans to march towards the square in the
face of the heavy police presence. But fighting went on in the city’s
side streets, and six police were injured, said local broadcaster
CNN Turk.

Numerous demonstrators were injured as well, though police did not
give details. A Reuters reporter saw several police beat one man
with truncheons.

The workers built the road we are standing on and now we are being
crushed on it, said retired Resit Celiktepe, 51, amid the clashes.

May Day demonstrations in Istanbul have been marked by clashes between
police and protesters in the past and authorities said they would
use force to prevent the rally.

Everyone must show common sense, state-run Anatolian news agency
reported Labour Minister Faruk Celik as saying.

If we can get through May Day today in agreement I believe future
May Days will turn into the celebration sought by all workers, he said.

Union confederations said they had abandoned plans to march towards
Taksim Square.

In order not to become a tool of this government’s provocations we
are sensibly ending our actions here.

But we will continue to call the government to account, said Suleyman
Celebi, chairman of DISK trade union confederation.

Last year dozens were injured in violent street battles on the 30th
anniversary of the deaths of 37 people who were shot by an unknown
gunman or trampled to death in May Day demonstrations in Taksim Square
in 1977, Euronews reports.

May 1, a traditional workers’ day holiday across most of Europe,
is a normal working day in Turkey, where the government resisted
intense union pressure this year to make it a day off.