More than 400 people who participated in May Day celebrations were arrested today in Istanbulwhere part of the city has been paralyzed to prevent rallies in the flagship Taksim Square, a Bar Association said.

As the Constantinople Branch of the Union of Progressive Lawyers (CHD) told X, the number of arrests exceeds 400.

Authorities did not immediately provide information.

Journalists of AFP Dozens of arrests were witnessed in the Besiktas and Metzidieki districts In the European sector of the city, where police ruled out the roads leading to Taksim Square.

With a few exceptions, rallies have been banned on this huge coastal avenue, the theater of major struggles for democracy in the past, since the demonstrations that started at the nearby Gezi Park shocked the government in 2013.

As in previous years, Police had blocked the square for several days.

Amnesty International Non -Government Organization reported Wednesday to arrest more than 100 people before May Day in Turkey, urging authorities to lift the demonstrations in Taksim Square.

Thousands of people were able to gather today in two areas in the Asian city area at the request of the trade unions, according to Turkish media and an AFP cameraman.

Constantinople

“Taksim Square must be recovered from this oppressive regime,” said Ozgur Ozel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP, Social Democrats), of the main force of the opposition, at one of the rallies.

Constantinople was a theater of large demonstrations in late March, so large that they had not been observed since 2013, following the arrest of the city’s opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s opponent.

Nearly 2,000 people were arrested for participating in prohibited demonstrations, according to authorities.