TURKEY: Clashes break out in Istanbul and Ankara as thousands defy a ban on May Day protests.

Record ID: 322605

  • Title: TURKEY: Clashes break out in Istanbul and Ankara as thousands defy a ban on May Day protests.
  • Date: 1st May 2014
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (MAY 1, 2014) (REUTERS) PROTESTERS RUNNING AWAY POLICE USING SHIELDS PROTESTERS DEMONSTRATING POLICE CHASING PROTESTERS AND FIRING SMOKE GRENADES PROTESTERS LETTING OFF FIREWORKS POLICE VAN SPRAYING WATER CANNON, PROTESTERS HURLING STONES ANKARA, TURKEY (MAY 1, 2014) (REUTERS) PROTESTERS HURLING STONES, LETTING OFF FIREWORKS AND RUNNING AWAY RIOT POLICE FIRING SMOKE GRENADES POLICE SPRAYING WATER CANNON ON PROTESTERS, PROTESTERS RUNNING AWAY PROTESTERS HURLING STONES POLICE WATER CANNONS PROTESTERS HURLING STONES VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS LETTING OFF FIREWORKS POLICE CHASING PROTESTERS, FIRING WATER CANNON POLICE FIRING SMOKE GRENADES PROTESTERS HURLING STONES MORE POLICEMEN CHASING PROTESTERS AND FIRING SMOKE GRENADES
  • Embargoed: 16th May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1H2HIL72FYXFOHLVV0ZVR0C3
  • Story Text: Clashes between police and protesters broke out in Istanbul and Turkey's capital, Ankara, on Thursday (May 1), as thousands of people, some armed with fire bombs and fireworks, defied a ban on May Day rallies.
    Turkish police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber pellets to disperse the protesters.
    In Istanbul, violence flared as police attempted to stop protesters reaching Taksim square.
    Citing security fears, authorities shut parts of the city's public transport system and deployed thousands of riot police, blocking access to Taksim, a traditional union rallying point and the focus of weeks of anti-government protests last summer.
    Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who warned last week against efforts to march on Taksim, has cast both last year's street protests and a corruption scandal dogging his government since December as part of a plot to undermine him.
    Pockets of protesters played cat-and-mouse in several neighbourhoods on the fringes of Taksim, a huge square surrounded by stores, restaurants and hotels usually thronged by commuters, shoppers and tourists.
    Flag-waving demonstrators, some throwing fireworks and stones, at one point breached barricades in Besiktas, a neighbourhood near Taksim on the shores of the Bosphorus, before police forced them back into side streets.
    In the working class Okmeydani district, members of leftist groups threw fire bombs and fireworks at police, who responded with rubber pellets and tear gas. Similar clashes erupted in March at the funeral of teenager Berkin Elvan, who had lain in a coma after being wounded in last year's unrest.
    Clouds of tear gas also wafted near the Tarlabasi district, a neighbourhood of crumbling buildings adjoining Taksim, which is heavily populated by migrants and subject of a government regeneration plan.
    Erdogan said last week he would not let unions march on Taksim and the government suggested instead the gathering should take place at a venue on the outskirts of Istanbul. The unions rejected that idea.
    On the main Istiklal shopping street leading to Taksim, hundreds of police, some in plain clothes others in riot gear, sat outside shuttered shops. Disgruntled tourists were searched at dozens of police checkpoints thrown up around the square.
    The authorities issued a similar ban last year, leading to thousands of anti-government protesters fighting with police as they tried to breach barricades around the huge square, which in previous years was a focal point for labour demonstrations.
    That violence was followed by mass protests that spread across Turkey late last May, in one of the biggest challenges to Erdogan's rule since his AK Party came to power in 2002.
    The prime minister has in the past dismissed protesters as "riff-raff" and "terrorists" and pointed to his AK Party's strong showing in elections.
    The AK Party dominated the electoral map in municipal elections on March 30, retaining control of both Istanbul and the capital Ankara despite the corruption scandal and last summer's unrest.
    During a visit to Turkey earlier this week, German President Joachim Gauck called on Turkish authorities to protect peoples' right to demonstrate, drawing an angry response from Erdogan, who accused him of interfering in domestic politics.
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