Turkey Detains Dozens of Leftists in Istanbul for Defying May Day Protest Ban

Turkish police detained dozens of protesters in Istanbul on Wednesday for ignoring a ban on Communist “May Day” demonstrations and began tearing down barricades in the city’s Taksim Square.

Istanbul has generally restricted demonstrations in Taksim Square since May 2013, when a wave of unrest spread across the country for various reasons. The protest groups came together at Gezi Park in Taksim Square, one of the busiest venues in Istanbul.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had then been in power for about a decade and remains in office to this day, sent in a huge force of riot police to clear out the “Gezi Park Movement” of 2013, resulting in a furious battle between police and protesters.

Human rights groups denounced the Gezi Park crackdown as a cynical move by Erdogan to silence his opposition. Erdogan’s critics said the crackdown was an important milestone in Erdogan’s shift to Islamist authoritarianism and predicted it would be his downfall.

Erdogan’s government has been wary of mass gatherings in Taksim Square ever since, particularly on occasions like May Day, when the demonstrations tend to have a whiff of insurrection about them. The governor of Istanbul announced a ban on May Day demonstrations in the square last week, and it was seconded a few days later by the Interior Ministry. Istanbul did permit May Day demonstrations elsewhere in the city.

Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday denounced the ban on “May Day celebrations” as “based on entirely spurious security and public order grounds,” and claimed it was a violation of recent decisions by Turkey’s Constitutional Court upholding the right of peaceful assembly:

Taksim Square is a place of huge symbolic significance and has long been a place where people gather in protest and in celebration. For more than a decade, the Turkish authorities have unlawfully restricted people’s right to assembly and criminalized peaceful protests that take place in the square. It is therefore vital that this year, May Day celebrations are allowed to proceed.

Turkish authorities stood firm and constructed metal barriers around Taksim Square to keep protesters at bay. Some roads were closed, and some public transportation was restricted in the interest of public safety.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya pointed out that 40 other locations across the country were cleared for May Day events, but “Taksim Square and its surrounding vicinity is not convenient for any rally.”

Turkish labor union leaders insisted they had the right to march in Taksim Square, and Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), supported them. Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is a member of the CHP and is seen as a likely challenger to Erdogan in the next presidential election.

“Sealing off Taksim amounts to not recognising the constitution,” CHP leader Ozgul Ozel said on Monday, referring to the same court decisions as Amnesty International.

Erdogan responded, saying he was all in favor of May Day, but he said plans for rallies in Taksim Square were “not well-intentioned,” and he feared some “marginal groups” might turn the event into chaos.

“I invite our unions and political parties to stay away from steps that would harm the May Day atmosphere,” Erdogan said.

Demonstrators insisted on breaching the barricades on Wednesday, clashing with some 40,000 police officers deployed across Istanbul. The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. 

According to Interior Minister Yerlikaya, 210 people were detained “after failure to heed our warnings and attempting to walk to the Taksim Square and attack our police officers on May 1 Labour and Solidarity Day.”

“We will keep on fighting until Taksim is free. Taksim belongs to the workers,” said Ozel, who turned up along with Imamoglu and a group of union leaders at a demonstration in the Sarachane district of Istanbul.

“These workers are not your enemies Our only desire is for the day to be celebrated as a festival. We do not want conflict,” Ozel told police officers gathered at the scene.