[A-List] No Taksim May Day in Turkey: 500-900 Demonstrators Detained

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D19092A6-47E1-4E1A-BDD4-F8A4E080FBF3.htm>
Clashes mark May Day in Turkey  	 	

Around 30,000 security personnel have been deployed to enforce a ban
on demonstrations [Reuters]

Riot police in Turkey have clashed with labour activists trying to
gather in Istanbul's Taksim square to celebrate May Day.

Police used clubs, tear gas and water cannons on Thursday to disperse
workers in different areas of the city.
	
Authorities had warned they would use force to prevent the rallies,
which have been banned since 1977.

Over 500 demonstrators have been detained and six police officers injured.
	
'Tough measures'

Police wearing gas masks first broke up a crowd that had gathered in
front of a labour union office with the intention of walking to Taksim
square, where at least 34 demonstrators were killed on May 1, 1977.

The workers then ran into the building and police blockaded it,
preventing them from leaving.

The trade unions later abandoned plans to hold the march, the first
time in 30 years they have agreed not to go into the square.

Metehan Demir, from the Ankara-based Hurriyet newspaper, told Al
Jazeera that the May Day demonstrations this year had turned into a
"showdown" between the government and the labour unions over the last
week.

The unions ultimately decided not to go into Taksim Square on Thursday
morning because of  "tough measures" by the police, he said.

"Earlier this month the unions were fully determined to walk to Taskim
Square but later on, through the judiciary and police warnings they
saw that the situation was very serious."

Demir said the authorities had allowed the unions to demonstrate at
other public squares.

He said that they had also offered trade union leaders the chance to
"lay a wreath at the monuments in Taksin Square – but unions rejected
this offer, saying they wanted to bring the workers along too".

The demonstrations were relatively peaceful this year because of the
decision not to march into the square, Demir told Al Jazeera.

"If the unions had gone in there would have been a big catastrophe.
Police would have responded in a very harsh way and easily turned it
into a tragedy," he said.

Turkish officials have said that they had intelligence that groups of
extremists would also seek to provoke unrest during the march.

Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported that a man in possession of 17
molotov cocktails was arrested near Taksim.

Workers' rights

The first of May is marked annually in many countries as a day of
labour recognition.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based rights group, used the day
to call on Lebanese authorities and employers to improve treatment of
domestic workers.

HRW's Nadim Houry said: "On the eve of Lebanese Labour Day, we would
like to highlight a huge segment of labourers who are not recognised
as such.

"They are domestic workers, almost a 100 per cent of whom are foreigners."

Workers and activists in the Philippines on Thursday called for a wage
increase amid soaring food prices.

While in Greece, disruptions to public transport services and domestic
flights were expected due to trade union strikes.

Thousands of people were expected to turn out in Havana to hear Raul
Castro, Cuba's president, give his first May Day address.

Overnight, police in the German city of Hamburg arrested several
rioters after pre-May Day street protests turned violent.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7378124.stm>
Page last updated at 16:16 GMT, Thursday, 1 May 2008 17:16 UK
Police break up Turkey marchers
Protesters tear-gassed by riot police during May Day clashes in Istanbul
Several people collapsed from the effects of tear gas

Turkish riot police have used tear gas and water cannon to prevent
protesters from staging a banned May Day rally in the centre of
Istanbul.

The authorities say 505 people were arrested and several were hurt as
crowds tried to reach Taksim Square.

Stones and bottles were thrown at security forces and police wearing
gas masks broke up the demonstrators.

The Turkish government banned May Day celebrations in and around the
square after 34 people died in 1977.

Turkey's three main union confederations had announced they would try
to hold a rally, but eventually they gave up because of the clashes.

Police set up barricades around the square to enforce the ban, imposed
after officials said they had received reports that radicals were
planning violent protests.

Local media said six police and an unknown number of demonstrators
were injured.

<http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/turkey/8829552.asp?gid=231&sz=45990>
Calm in Turkey after clashes at major city May Day celebrations

Turkish police fired pepper spray and water cannons to prevent crowds
gathered to celebrate May Day in Istanbul from marching to Taksim
Square where they planned to hold a mass gathering. A total of 530
demonstrators were detained by police, with 38 reported injured in
Istanbul, the governor announced. Later in the day, peaceful May 1
celebrations in the capital Ankara turned ugly as police and
demonstrators clashed. (UPDATED)

Police wearing gas masks first broke up a crowd which had gathered in
front of the DISK office in Istanbul's central business and
residential Sisli district with the intention of walking to Taksim.

The Turkish government had insisted on its rejection to lift the
decades-long ban and open Taksim for celebrations, citing security
concerns, taking extra ordinary security measures stationing thousands
of police across the city.

In the days leading up to the May Day celebrations, Turkey's leading
labor unions, representing some 3 million workers, reaffirmed their
vow to celebrate May Day peacefully in Taksim with an estimated
500,000 people.

Police, blocking all the streets leading to Taksim, broke up groups of
workers trying to enter the square through various alternative routes,
firing tear gas and beating some demonstrators with clubs.

Some demonstrators were seen throwing rocks at police. Journalists and
people trying to get to work were also affected by the tear gas fired
at the demonstrators.

The unions ended the march in the Sisli district of Istanbul stating
that they did not want to be seen as the government's provocation
mechanism.

Labor Unions Confederation (DISK) Chairman Suleyman Celebi said that
together with Confederation of Public Sector Unions (KESK) Chairman
Ismail Hakki Tombul and Turkish Confederation of Labor (Turk-Is)
Secretary General Mustafa Turkel, they decided not to push workers
towards Taksim Square for a colossal meeting.

"Now we are ending the celebrations with common sense, because we
don't want to be seen as the government's provocation mechanism,"
Celebi told reporters on Thursday. "We wanted to gather in Taksim
(square) to express our demands with an enthusiastic festival. Now,
all squares and the whole Turkey have become Taksim," he said.

The governor of Istanbul, Muammer Guler announced that 38 people were
injurdd and 530 demonstrations had been detained at the Istanbul
rally. The Istanbul Crisis Center had announced that six police were
reportedly injured.

However, Tombul told ANKA that nearly 900 union members had been
detained during the demonstrations.

A group of demonstrators later made their way to Taksim's Istiklal
Street where police used pepper spray and water cannons to disperse
them.

Brief scuffles erupted between police and a group from the leftist
Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP) during the mostly peaceful May Day
celebrations in the capital Ankara's, Sihhiye Square. Police used
pepper spray and batons to disperse the crowd.  At least one
demonstrator was hospitalized.

Turkey banned May Day celebrations in Taksim Square after 36 people
were killed on May 1, 1977; a date since referred to as the "Bloody
May 1." This event is seen as a turning point in Turkish history and
an important factor that paved the way for the military coup in 1980.
Still-unidentified armed men opened fire on the crowd of some
1-million-people attending the celebrations. The clashes between left
and right political groups in the 1970s had brought Turkey to the
brink of civil war.

DISK last year attempted to breach the ban and hold celebrations in
Taksim. But clashes erupted between the demonstrators and police
forces, wounding tens of people. Some 1,000 people were taken into
custody in 2007.

The Turkish government has decided to celebrate May Day as "Labor and
Solidarity Day," but declined to declare it a national public holiday.

Observers say the Turkish government is reluctant to lift the ban due
to concerns that it could turn into a mass anti-AKP rally over the
controversial social security law.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>