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Turkey police crack down on protests
Police use water cannon and fire tear gas in bid to quell escalating anti-government protests in Istanbul and Ankara.
Last Modified: 01 Jun 2013 18:33
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Turkish riot police have used tear gas and water cannon during clashes with thousands of protesters in Istanbul, as more people joined the fiercest anti-government demonstrations for years.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for an immediate end to the protests, that were triggered by government redevelopment plans of a park in Istanbul's Taksim Square.
The protests have since widened into a broader show of defiance against Erdogan and his government.
Police left the square on Saturday afternoon, taking away barricades and allowing in tens of thousands of protesters to gather.
Earlier, police fired tear gas and water cannon down a major shopping street as crowds chanting "unite against fascism" and "government resign" marched towards Taksim, where hundreds were injured in clashes on Friday.
At least one police officer fired his gun into the air.
A police helicopter buzzed overhead as groups of mostly young men and women, bandanas or surgical masks tied around their mouths, used Facebook and Twitter on mobile phones to try to organise and regroup in side streets.
Hundreds of people were chasing police vehicles as they were trying to leave the area.
Growing momentum
Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Taksim Square, said there was growing momentum against Erdogan.
"What protesters are telling us here is that they are angry about what they are describing as the stubborn reaction of the prime minister and the heavy-handed tactics of his police force.
"The protesters have been directing their anger both at the PM and also at the media. They say the media has sold out and is not covering these events."
One of the protesters told Al Jazeera: "It started with us defending the last bit of green space we have left. We have been gassed, we have been clubbed, and we have been hospitalised."
Ibrahin Kalin, chief adviser to the prime minister, told Al Jazeera that police had fired tear gas in response to a group of protesters attacking police as they were leaving Taksim Square.
Ankara clashes
Stone-throwing protesters also clashed with police firing tear gas in the Kizilay district of central Ankara. Riot police with electric shock batons chased demonstrators into side streets and shops.
The police’s record on abusive policing has been surpassed as they use tear gas and water cannon fire against peaceful demonstrators.
Emma Sinclair-Webb , senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch
Al Jazeera's Gonca Senay said the situation calmed down on Saturday evening.
"The police are still firing tear gas, but not as frequently as before," she said.
"Protesters in Ankara were angry at the government and how police behaved in Istanbul."
Rights groups spoke out against the police's allegedly excessive use of force.
"The police’s record on abusive policing has been surpassed as they use tear gas and water cannon fire against peaceful demonstrators,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch.
"The government’s failure to respect the right to protest and to speak out is fuelling discontent among people in Turkey."
Amnesty International said it kept its office, close to Taksim, open as a "safe haven for protesters escaping police violence throughout the night".
The group said 20 doctors were in the office, treating injured protesters.
Protests also broke out in the coastal city of Izmir late on Friday.
The demonstration at Taksim's Gezi Park started late on Monday after trees were torn up to make way for redevelopment including building a shopping mall and the reconstruction of a former Ottoman army barracks.
Erdogan vowed to push ahead with the plans and said the issue was being used as an excuse to stoke tensions.
"Every four years we hold elections and this nation makes its choice," he said in a speech broadcast on television.
"Those who have a problem with government's policies can express their opinions within the framework of law and democracy ... I am asking the protesters to immediately end these actions," he said.
The opposition accused him of behaving like a dictator.
"Tens of thousands are saying no, they are opposing the dictator ... The fact that you are the ruling party doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which was allowed to hold a public demonstration in Taksim on Saturday.
Turkish authorities have arrested dozens of people protesting in the fiercest anti-government demonstrations the country has witnessed in years, with riot police firing tear gas on demonstrators in Istanbul and Ankara.
At least 60 people were detained on Friday as they protested in Istanbul at a rally which began over the demolition of a park, but which turned into a broader protest against what they see as an increasingly authoritarian government.
"The protesters are saying that this is not about trees anymore," said Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Istanbul.
Several thousand people had attended the Istanbul protest, and there is "an assortment of tear gas cannisters everywhere" in the city's main Taksim Square, she said.
More than 100 people were injured, some left lying on the ground unconscious, while two people were hospitalised with injuries to the head, an AFP photographer witnessed.
In the most severe case, a Turkish national of Palestinian origin had to undergo brain surgery after fractures to her skull, but she was doing well in intensive care, according to Istanbul governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu.
He said in televised remarks that an investigation was underway and people had been detained for "provoking violence."
The demonstrators had occupied the Gezi park since May 28 to prevent bulldozers from completing the demolition, part of the government's redevelopment plan for central Taksim Square.
In a victory for the protesters later on Friday, an Istanbul court ordered the temporary suspension of the project to uproot the trees.
But the protest spread to the capital Ankara, where about 5,000 people gathered in a park, and with police there firing tear gas to disperse crowds trying to reach the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party.
The demonstrators, mostly young supporters of the opposition Republican People's Party, had planned to protest against new laws restricting the sale of alcohol and chanted: "Everywhere is resistance, Everywhere is Taksim."
The rallies also spread to two locations in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
Several protesters in Istanbul were injured when a wall they climbed collapsed during a police chase, and a prominent journalist was hospitalised after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister, the private Dogan news agency reported.
Rageh said many protesters complained that the police were using water cannon and firing teargas indiscriminately.
"We saw a lot of tourists running to different directions. People are trying to take refuge at coffee shops and the homes around the area. Police have been firing tear gas in different directions," she said.
"Certainly the predominant complaint here is that police are firing teargas indiscriminately.
"But they are also coming under attack from protesters. You can see them with rocks and there are injuries here. People are very angry."
'Authoritarian' government
Many of the protesters are angry at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government, which some Turks argue has been displaying increasingly authoritarian and uncompromising tendencies in its third successive term in office.
Last week, the government enacted a law restricting the sale and advertising of alcohol which has alarmed secular Turks who fear an encroachment on more liberal lifestyles.
Earlier this week, the government went ahead with a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a disputed third bridge across the Bosphorus Strait which some say will destroy the few remaining green areas of the city.
It also named the bridge after a controversial Ottoman sultan believed to have ordered a massacre of a minority Shia Muslim group, instead of choosing a more unifying figure.
Gezi Park protestors held a large poster with a caricature depicting Erdogan as an Ottoman sultan with a caption that read: "The people won't yield to you."
Erdogan dismissed the protesters' demands for the park's protection, saying the government would go ahead with renovation plans "no matter what they do".
The forestry minister said more trees would be planted than those uprooted at Gezi and has defended the government's environmental record.
Friday's dawn raid was the latest in a series of aggressive crackdown on protests. Human rights activists accuse Turkish police of using inordinate force to break up protests.
On Friday, demonstrators affected by the gas sought shelter at a luxury hotel at Taksim and were tended by guests.
Police removed tents and demonstrators' other belongings and mounted barricades around the park.
