Around a thousand Greek leftists on Monday marched in support of Turkish protesters who clashed with police in Ankara for a fourth day in the greatest unrest to face Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. The Athens demonstration included a small group of Kurdish refugees who held a banner in Greek and Turkish: “Overturn the regime”.
A similar protest had been held in the northern city of Thessaloniki on Sunday.
The protests in Turkey started out as a local environment campaign and quickly turned into one of the biggest demonstrations against Erdogan’s government since it came to power over a decade ago.
Syriza, Greece’s second largest party, has condemned the Turkish police’s heavy-handed response to the protests and called on European Union authorities to put pressure on Ankara.
“All over Turkey there are protests over press freedom, union rights, the rights of Kurds, women and the right to protest. It is imperative that Erdogan listens,” Syriza said.
“Authoritarianism is broken on the street, solidarity with the Turkish people,” chanted the demonstrators from various leftist groups including the main opposition radical left Syriza party.