Teargas, Water cannon to Disperse Turkish Protestors

ANKARA,(ST) _ Turkish police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters on Saturday as they gathered to enter Taksim park that was the center of protests against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last month.

Taksim Solidarity, combining an array of political groups, had called a march to enter the sealed off Gezi park, but the governor of Istanbul  Hussein  Avni Mutlu warned that any such gathering would be confronted by the police.

“We are going to our park to open its doors to its real owners … We are here and we will stay here … We have not given up our demands,” the umbrella group said in a statement.

AFP reported that riot police chased protesters into side streets in what appeared to be the biggest police intervention since the mid-June protests and riots that saw Taksim Square sealed off by makeshift barricades.

Protesters in Istanbul chanted “Together against fascism” and “Everywhere is resistance”.

Witnesses said that police detained dozens of protesters, but later in the evening many still remained in side streets in the Taksim area, including youths and women, some in gas masks.

In the capital, Ankara, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in one area close to the center.

Turkish Halk TV showed protesters standing in front of riot police in Istanbul, displaying a court decision cancelling plans for a replica Ottoman-era barracks on Taksim Square. The plan is one of a string of ambitious projects fostered by Erdogan, including a canal parallel to the Bosphorus waterway, a huge international airport and a giant mosque.

Four people were killed and about 7,500 wounded in the June crackdown, according to the Turkish Medical Association. It largely ended when police cleared a protest camp on the square on June 15.

T. Fateh