Riot police in Taksim Square, Istanbul. Still from Greenpeace video
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to push ahead with the controversial commercial development of Gezi Park that sparked violent clashes with police, as the protests spread to Ankara.
Mr Erdogan has admitted that the police response with tear gas and pepper spray may have been “excessive”, but maintained that development of the site would continue and he would not kowtow to “wild extremists”.
Violent clashes in Gezi Park, in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, began on Friday following a week of peaceful protests, with people hoping to prevent the construction of a shopping mall on the site which has long been a popular gathering place for protests and rallies. Over the days those protests turned from protecting the park, to protesting against the perceived “Islamisation” being imposed on the Turkish people by Erdogan’s government, which many believe to be too authoritarian.
After the violent suppression of protesters yesterday, where riot police used tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons in an attempt to dispel protesters. Some protesters threw rocks at the oncoming police, with many others becoming injured trying to flee the situation. These injured protesters found refuge in the lobby of a nearby hotel where tourists attempted to help the wounded whilst they waited for ambulances to arrive and a dozen people were taken to hospital.
Speaking to the exporters’ union, Mr Erdogan was defiant and vowed to restore order in the cities “to ensure the safety of people and their property”, but did not refer to the shopping mall that protesters fear will be built on the Gezi Park site, one of the last green spaces left in Istanbul.
Mr Erdogan attacked the legitimacy of the protesters by stating that “all attempts apart from the ballot box [to make political change]are not democratic” describing the protesters as “extremists…running wild”.
There were reports of police dropping tear gas cannister son protesters from helicopters overnight. Today, hundreds of demonstrators marched over the bridge connecting the shores of eastern and western Istanbul, making their way to Taksim Square. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, who responded by throwing rocks. Later, as protesters were chanting “government resign” and “unite against fascism”, police fired a water cannon at them.
The video below from Greenpeace Turkey shows the ferocity of the police response:
