Turkish police forces clashed Monday with protesters around Constantinople’s central Taksim Square and brought 170 people who took part in rallies and marches for the anniversary of mass popular mobilizations that broke out in nine years ago. Turkey.
The Gezi Park movement marked for many the most important challenge to the power of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan by the Turkish people. The current president of Turkey equated those who took part in the mass mobilizations with the Kurdish separatist guerrillas and those he accuses of orchestrating the 2016 military coup attempt.
A Turkish court recently sentenced eight people, including Osman Kavala, to life in prison for organizing and financing Gezi Park protests.
The defendants denied the allegations, arguing that those anti-government demonstrations were spontaneous, took place across the country and constituted a citizen’s right enshrined in the Constitution.
Some 1,000 people gathered in the streets around Taksim Square yesterday afternoon, many of them holding photos of people sentenced to prison terms, or photos of people who lost their lives in the police crackdown on protesters in 2013. Banners read: the slogan “the darkness will go away, Gezi will stay”.
The protesters, who tried to arrive at Taksim Square and Istiklal Avenue, prevented police units equipped with shields and other uprising repression equipment. Police used tear gas to disperse them.
“Erdogan will leave, there is no other way,” protesters shouted.
Earlier, small groups of protesters clashed with police in other areas near Taksim, where they tried to reach on foot.
According to the services of the governor of Istanbul, 170 people were detained. In a press release, they stressed that the demonstrations took place without the permission of the authorities and reminded that in the Beyoglu area, under the current Turkish legislation, demonstrations and marches are not allowed.
Earlier in the day, Turkish Workers’ Party (TIP) lawmakers hung a giant banner on one of the bridges connecting the two sides of the Bosphorus. After a skirmish, the police lowered the banner, which released the slogan “The class is everywhere, the resistance is everywhere”, a well -known slogan of the mass mobilizations of 2013.
NGOs, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and Western governments allied with Turkey say the recent convictions and imprisonments were politically motivated and aimed at intimidating President Erdogan’s opponents.
Critics of Mr Erdogan say the authorities’ intention was to criminalize the Gezi movement and to cultivate the impression that the mass mobilizations were funded and instigated from abroad.
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