Turkish police on Friday used tear gas and detained hundreds of people staging May Day demonstrations in İstanbul, as thousands rallied nationwide.
According to the Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD), at least 370 people were detained in İstanbul, where police fired tear gas from riot-control vehicles into the crowd.
Images aired on the opposition Halk TV also showed the president of the Turkish Workers Party, Erkan Baş, engulfed in pepper spray.
“Those in power already speak 365 days a year, so let workers talk about the hardships they face at least one day a year,” he said.
Two groups were specially singled out on the city’s European side after signaling their intention to march to Taksim Square, the scene of several anti-government protests in the past, which was sealed off overnight by police.
A union official, Başaran Aksu, was detained just after he had denounced the Taksim lockdown.
“You can’t close off a square to the workers of Turkey. Everyone uses Taksim, for official ceremonies, for celebrations. Only the laborers, the workers, the poor find the square closed to them,” he said.
Police lines
May Day, which celebrates workers and the working class, sees a major police deployment in Turkey every year, with a large area in the heart of İstanbul around Taksim Square sealed off.
Last year protests moved to the Kadıköy area of the city where more than 400 people were detained.
The number of detentions this year appeared to be approaching that level.
The ÇHD, which was present at the rallies, said in a post on X that at 1100 GMT “according to our information, the number of people in custody stands at 370.”
On Friday a large deployment of police, many in riot gear, and metal barricades were seen choking access to central neighborhoods of İstanbul.
In the Mecidiyeköy district, police were seen by Agence France-Presse using tear gas on the crowd, which included members of a Marxist party, the HKP, who tried to push through while chanting “USA murderer, AKP [Turkey’s ruling party] accomplice.”
Police surrounding the Beşiktaş neighborhood stepped in, sometimes violently, whenever a chant was taken up by the demonstrators. Agence France-Presse saw several protesters thrown to the ground.
Unions and civil society associations had called for the May 1 demonstrations under the slogan “Bread. Peace. Freedom.”
Inflation in Turkey is officially pegged at 30 percent but is closer to 40, according to independent estimates.
In Ankara about 100 coal miners who had staged a nine-day hunger strike to demand wages in arrears were cheered as they joined the May Day march, which was notably large and youthful and monitored by a significant police presence, an AFP journalist said.
Earlier this week Turkish authorities issued detention and search warrants for 62 people, of whom they deemed 46, including journalists, labor union members and opposition figures, were “likely to carry out attacks.”
© Agence France-Presse