Turkey Police Detain Over 200 In Tense May Day Clampdown

Turkish protesters march during a May Day rally organised by labour unions in Ankara. (AFP photo)

ISTANBUL:  Turkish police on Sunday detained over 200 people in a crackdown on unauthorised protests during a tense May Day in Istanbul, using tear gas and water cannon against demonstrators and imposing a heavy security blanket on the city.

One man in his 50s was killed when he was knocked over by a police water cannon vehicle while trying to cross the road, in an incident that caused anger on social media.

The authorities prevented all public access to Taksim Square in the centre of the city -- the traditional focus for protests -- and the usually bustling area was deserted save for police.

Hundreds of labour and union activists, brandishing slogans promoting workers' solidarity, took part in an officially-sanctioned action at a vast market ground in the outlying district of Bakirkoy close to the international airport.

However police used tear gas against members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) who sought to stage a protest of their own in Bakirkoy, roughly arresting several people, an AFP photographer said.

Police also used water cannon and tear gas in the district of Sisli on protesters who were trying to march on Taksim.

In the flashpoint area of Okmeydani, masked radical leftists threw Molotov cocktails and firecrackers at police and created burning barricades out of junk.

The office of the Istanbul governor said that 207 people were detained around the city for trying to march on Taksim. It said that 40 Molotov cocktails, 17 hand grenades and dozens of fireworks were seized.

'24,500 police deployed'

The man who was killed was run over by a police water cannon vehicle, known by its Turkish acronym TOMA and which have become ubiquitous in recent years as the police crack down on protests.

The man, 57, was knocked down by the TOMA while trying to cross the Tarlabasi Street close to Taksim, reports said. An investigation has been opened.

Access to Taksim, the main hub in the European side of the city, was cut off by an interlocking network of police barriers.

The square, usually filled with hundreds of people, was completely empty save for a few police and dozens of pigeons enjoying having the square to themselves.

Police also sealed off access to Istiklal Caddesi, the famed shopping avenue leading from Taksim whose stores were all shuttered.  

The Istanbul governor's office had said 24,500 members of the Turkish security forces were on duty in the city.

Parliament last year passed a controversial security bill giving the police greater powers to crack down on protests, as controversy grows over what critics say is the authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

May Day comes at a time of particular tension in Turkey after a succession of deadly attacks this year blamed on jihadists and Kurdish militants.

Two police were killed and 22 other people wounded Sunday in a car bomb attack in the city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border.

Meanwhile, Turkish police detained four suspected Islamic State jihadists who were allegedly planning an attack on May Day celebrations in the capital Ankara, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.

Planned May Day events in the southern cities of Adana and Sanliurfa were also scrapped after the authorities reportedly received intelligence of a possible suicide bomb plot.


(Source : ndtv.com)

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