May Day Archives

Terrorist State of Turkey Police confront May Day protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim Square

May 1, 2017 By administrator

Demonstrators had attempted to defy a government ban on holding events in the symbolic square. The confrontation occurred shortly after a new round of internationally-criticized sackings among the Turkish civil service.

Turkish police confronted left-wing protesters on Monday who attempted to march to Taksim Square despite the government having sealed off the symbolic square for the third May Day in a row.

Only small numbers of labor union representatives were permitted to lay wreaths at a monument in the square. Major trade union organizations agreed to hold their demonstrations at government-approved spots in Istanbul.

According to the AFP news agency, some 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district wanted to defy the ban and walk to the square. They unfurled anti-government banners reading “Long Live May Day, No to the dictator!,” alluding to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s expanded executive powers that resulted from an April 16 referendum.

Police used tear gas and shot rubber pellets to disperse the group. Turkish state-run media reported that 13 individuals trying to access Taksim square were detained. However, AP reported some 70 individuals were detained.

According to a statement from Istanbul’s Govenor’s Office, Turkish riot police detained 207 individuals across the entire city.

Taksim holds a prominent position in the history of anti-government activism due to the 2013 Gezi Park sit-in, as well as due to the 1977 Taksim Square Massacre. On May Day of that year, an estimated 34 people were killed after shots were fired from a nearby building into a crowd.

The government crackdown has drawn widespread international criticism, including from the United Nations (UN).

On Monday at a press conference in Geneva, UN Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein expressed concern over the recent events in Turkey.

“It is highly unlikely that the suspensions and detentions will have met due process standards,” Zeid said.

He also commented on the imprisonment of journalists in Turkey, stating “Journalism is not a crime in Turkey, it is an issue the government must pay deep attention to.”

Terrorist State of Turkey: Dozens arrested in Istanbul May Day clampdown

May 1, 2016 By administrator

0,,19228137_303,00 Unauthorized May Day rallies were met with tear gas and water cannons from police in Istanbul. Clamping down across the city, authorities blocked access to the city’s central Taksim Square, well-known for protests.

An authorized gathering of hundreds of labor and union activists on the outskirts of the city near the airport was allowed to take place on Sunday, but May Day demonstrations of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and protesters trying to break through barriers to Taksim Square were repelled by police. Of the later group, state-run news agency Anatolia said 36 had been arrested.

Anatolia also reported that police had detained four suspected “Islamic State” (IS) militants for allegedly planning a May Day attack in Turkey’s capital of Ankara.

In a separate incident, a man was killed when a police water cannon vehicle while trying to cross the street near Taksim Square. Officials announced that they had opened an investigation into the death of the 57-year-old.

The governor of Istanbul announced that 24,500 members of Turkish security forces would be working on Sunday “to provide for the security of citizens.” May Day, traditionally celebrated as an International Labor Day, comes at a particularly tense time for Turkey this year after a series of violent terrorist attacks across the nation.

Earlier on Sunday, two police officers were killed and 22 others wounded after a car bomb exploded in the city of Gaziantep, not far from the frontier with Syria.

es/rc (AFP, Reuters)

Protesters mark May Day from Hong Kong to Paris, Only Turkey and Cambodia saw violence in the streets

May 2, 2014 By administrator

ISTANBUL – Agence France-Presse
People walk through Red Square with flags and banners during a rally in Moscow May 1, 2014. REUTERS Photo
Only Turkey and Cambodia saw violence in the streets on May Day, as millions around the world marked International Labour Day peacefully.

About 100,000 workers paraded on Moscow’s iconic Red Square for the first time since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as the annexation of Crimea triggered a surge of patriotism.

Protesters were also out in force in European countries including France, Italy and Greece, marching against unemployment and austerity policies. Across Asia, workers took to the streets demanding better working conditions and salary hikes.
The most impressive May Day turnout was in Russia, where a huge column of demonstrators waving Russian flags and balloons marched through Moscow’s iconic square near the Kremlin and voiced their support for President Vladimir Putin and his hardline stance on the Ukraine crisis.

“Putin is right”, “Proud of the country” and “Let’s support decisions of our president” read the banners carried by the smiling demonstrators, a colourful spectacle harking back to Soviet times.

May Day was a key date in the Soviet calendar, but in recent years, the annual demonstrations have been relegated to a city highway.

Trade union leaders said about two million people had turned up for May Day rallies across Russia.

The tone was markedly different in Greece where thousands marched in the countries two main cities of Athens and Salonika against an austerity drive following a disastrous debt crisis that led to mass lay-offs.

In Italy’s Turin, scuffles broke out between police and hundreds of protesters.

Activists lobbed smoke bombs at police, who charged demonstrators in the northern industrial city, which has been badly hit by a painful two-year recession.

Thousands marched in France with the biggest rallies in Paris and other major cities such as Bordeaux and Toulouse targeting the Socialist government’s budget cuts to rein in the deficit.

Rallies also took place across Asia, including in Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Taipei.

In Cambodia, security forces armed with sticks and batons forcibly dispersed dozens of May Day protesters near Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park, according to an AFP photographer. Several people were beaten.

In Indonesia, protestors carrying portraits of leftist idols such as Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and the country’s first president Sukarno, marched to the state palace in Jakarta.

Some sang and danced as others carried a three-metre-long toy octopus wearing a red hat with the words “Capitalist Octopus, Sucking the Blood of Workers.”

More than 1,000 protesters gathered in Hong Kong’s landmark Victoria Park to walk towards the government headquarters waving colourful flags and placards, while singing a Chinese version of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the musical Les Miserables, while calling for better working conditions and wages.

Domestic helper rights concern groups, which made up a large portion of the rally, wore masks with a picture of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, an Indonesian maid who was allegedly abused by her employer for months, while shouting: “We are workers, we are not slaves”.

About 20,000 people rallied in Kuala Lumpur against price hikes implemented by Malaysia’s long-ruling government, which already is under domestic and international scrutiny over its handling of the passenger jet that disappeared on March 8.

More than 10,000 workers marched to the labour ministry in Taiwan’s capital Taipei demanding wage hikes and a ban on companies hiring cheap temporary or part-time workers.

In Singapore, a protest organised by critics of the government’s immigration policy drew around 400 protestors chanting slogans calling for the long-ruling People’s Action Party to step down.
May/01/2014

Police use water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets in Istanbul’s tense May Day

May 1, 2014 By administrator

Turkish police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber pellets to stop May Day demonstrators trying to access the city’s iconic Taksim Square. REUTERS Photo

14.53: CHP deputy Mahmut Tanal has claimed that police officers fired real bullets in Istanbul. “Those are real bullets, are you aware of that? Using real bullets against the people is a huge crime. What’s necessary should immediately be done,” Tanal said via his Twitter account, linking to a picture of two bullets that were found in the Beşiktaşdistrict.

Istanbul is set for a difficult May Day, with the Istanbul Governor’s Office warning that Taksim Square will not be opened for Labor Day demonstrations even as unions insist on their right to gather at the iconic square.

The governor’s office cited intelligence reports indicating that “illegal terrorist groups” would resort to violence against security forces as a reason for blocking Taksim Square, as well as many roads located around the central square.

Unions, including the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK) and the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), have marched to Taksim defying the ban trying to break the police barricades. They say the government’s measures are incompatible with previous rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ensuring freedom of assembly.

Besides Istanbul, May Day demonstrations are planned by activists in more than 30 provinces of Turkey, including the capital Ankara.

Here are the live updates:

18.00: The Istanbul Governor’s Office has stated that 142 demonstrators have been detained and 90 people, 19 of whom are police officers, were injured and treated in hospital during May Day clashes in the city. Twenty-three people are still being treated, the statement added. The numbers provided by the governor’s office did not take into account those who have been treated outside of hospitals.

17.10: A woman in Ankara has braved police by standing in front of a water cannon truck (TOMA), refusing to let it proceed on its way. The woman, wearing a distinctive bag, did not move despite officers warning that they would resort to firing water if she did not let them pass. She finally sat on the track, holding her ID in her hands, as police fired pressurized water.