Rarely has such a display of force been achieved for a 1er-May in Istanbul, with barriers and police cordons everywhere, controls, closed streets, armored vehicles deployed from the banks of the Bosphorus to the historic Sultanahmet peninsula. No bus, metro, tram, boat could access the central districts of Beyoglu, Fatih and Sisli. A city under siege thus woke up, Wednesday morning, to the strange ballet of dozens and dozens of foreign tourists pulling their suitcases on wheels on the desperately empty main roads, in search of an improbable taxi.
The day before, the governor of the megacity had drawn up a Prévert-style list of public transport routes and stations made inaccessible from 5:30 a.m., forcing several opposition parties and union centers to change their meeting points. The Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, announced the deployment of 42,000 police officers in the city, more than double the number in previous years, denouncing in advance the “terrorist organizations (who want) make 1er-May a field of action and propaganda ». On Wednesday, according to a report from his ministry, 210 people were arrested, without even being able to approach the square.
Early on, images of the first arrests of groups of activists, most of them very young, began to circulate on social networks. Members of left-wing and far-left parties, who were trying to reach Taksim, which has been closed to demonstrators since the Gezi revolt movement (named after the park located on the square) put down by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2013. The most highly symbolic place in Turkish social, trade union and political history.
“Resistance is everywhere!” »
In 1977, the traditional demonstration of 1er-May in Taksim ended in a bloodbath. Shots fired from several buildings were followed by a panic, which resulted in 34 dead and 136 injured. Following this tragedy, demonstrations were systematically banned in this square for more than three decades.
This is precisely where trade union organizations and opposition parties, including the Republican People’s Party (CHP), have called for marches in recent days. Galvanized by the victory in the municipal elections of March 31, which ended for the first time in a major setback for the Islamo-nationalist coalition in power, the groups opposed to the policies of Erdogan’s government were keen to mark this day of their imprint. A march, according to the press releases, against “poverty and hunger” and the establishment of“another policy to get the country out of the crisis and its authoritarianism”. In vain.
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