More than 400 Detained on May Day

Lawyer Güray Dağ from the Contemporary Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD) told bianet that more than 400 people were taken into police custody during Labour Day.

She said that people were detained in Taksim and neighbouring districts and taken to the 1st Police Department in Aksaray.

She added that the association was monitoring what happened to the detainees and that the number might rise. This information was obtained on the actual day.

Istanbul Governor Muammer Güler later spoke of 108 detentions.

Meanwhile, representatives of parties and organisations who gathered in Taksim Square for the first time in years were proud at this achievement.

Ufuk Uras, Istanbul MP for the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) told bianet, “It is a great success that people gathered in Taksim despite the resistance of the government, the Istanbul police and governor Muammer Güler.”

He added, “Oppression and bans only exist in authoritarian regimes. This year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Labour Day in Turkey in a suitable manner. In the future, squares need to be liberated. We wanted all the confederations to celebrate 1 May together. There should be no more clashes in the side streets.”

He was referring to police intervening and preventing anyone coming from side streets from joining a main march of a strictly limited number of people to Taksim Square.

MPs for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), Sebahat Tuncel and Aysel Tuğluk, said that the police intervention was “unnecessary” and that Taksim needed to be opened to the workers.

Meriç Eyüboğlu from the Socialist Feminist Collective (SFK) regretted that only a few representatives had been allowed to gather.

Alper Taş from the ÖDP evaluated the crowd of around 5,000 as “a start.”

Doğan Tarkan, chair of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (DSİP) said that the attacks by police in the Pangaltı and Kurtuluş districts were extrajudiciary, while Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey representative of Human Rights Watch found the police more “polite” than in previous years. She added, “We see that when people gather in Taksim nothing terrible happens.”

Among those celebrating in Taksim were DTP politicians Ahmet Türk, Sırrı Sakık and Akın Birdal, Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) chair Filiz Koçali, bianet coordinator and member of the Socialist Labour Movement Ertuğrul Kürkçü, Global Peace and Justice Coalition representative Tayfun Mater, academic Ahmet İnsel, and many other politicians, artists and rights activists. (BÇ/AG)