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Turkey unrest: more clashes in Istanbul as Erdoğan holds rally Turkey unrest: violent clashes in Istanbul as Erdoğan holds rally
(about 1 hour later)
Thousands of defiant protesters attempting to converge on central Istanbul's Taksim Square on Sunday were kept away by police firing repeated rounds of teargas, as the government maintained a hard line against rekindled demonstrations. Istanbul came to a standstill on Sunday as an army of riot police and gendarmerie cordoned off streets and teargassed protesters in the centre of the city while the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, staged a rally before hundreds of thousands of his supporters at the waterfront.
Across the city, the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's supporters gathered in their thousands for a campaign-style rally as he sought to galvanize his base after weeks of anti-government protests left his international image battered, and exposed deep rifts within Turkish society. Some 24 hours after using brute force to clear the focal point of the demonstrations against the government and bulldozing Gezi Park in Taksim Square, where a varied crew of protest groups had been camped out since the beginning of the month, Erdogan ditched all efforts at conciliation at a rally of his Justice and Development party (AKP).
Police in uniform and plain clothes sealed off Taksim Square and adjacent Gezi Park, which riot police cleared of thousands of peaceful protesters in a swift but muscular operation Saturday evening. "Taksim is not Turkey," Erdogan declared, in a reference to the city centre square ringed off by riot police on Sunday evening as thousands of demonstrators sought to converge there.
Crews worked through the night to remove all traces of a sit-in that started more than two weeks ago and became the focus of the strongest challenge to Erdoğan in his 10 years in office. Protest organisers had called for a million-strong demonstration at Taksim Square, but the entire area was cordoned off, making access impossible. Stretches of the motorways encircling Istanbul were also closed by police to try to prevent protesters getting to the city centre.
Istanbul's governor, Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, said the square was off-limits to the public for the time being, and nobody would be allowed to gather. A spokesman for the protesters vowed the group would retake Gezi Park. The opposite conditions applied to government supporters making their way en masse to hear the prime minister. The Istanbul municipality and the AKP laid on buses and other transport to help boost the numbers attending.
"We will win Taksim Square again and we will win Taksim Gezi Park again," Alican Elagöz said. Erdogan inveighed against the international media, blaming the BBC and CNN for distorting the drama of the past three weeks in what he repeatedly alleged is an international plot to divide and diminish Turkey.
A call went out for another demonstration in Taksim Square for Sunday afternoon, but the area was within a tight police cordon and passersby were being subjected to identity checks and bag searches. "You will make your voice heard so anyone conspiring against Turkey will shiver," he told the crowd. "Turkey is not a country that international media can play games on."
Thousands of protesters trying to reach the area were stuck on side streets and in nearby neighbourhoods in a blanket of teargas. Stumbling to avoid the gas, they piled into nearby cafes and restaurants, where waiters clutched napkins to their faces. He added that the Turkish nation "is not the one banging pots at nights", in reference to what has become a soundtrack to the protests, middle-aged people coming on to their tenement balconies nightly to hammer on kitchen utensils.
Stone-throwing youths and riot police clashed in Istanbul's Şişli neighborhood next to the Taksim area. Television footage showed police deploying two water cannon trucks against the youths, standing near a flaming barricade blocking the street. Rocks littered the roadway. The same din was heard across several central Istanbul neighbourhoods on Sunday evening.
In a district about 10km (six miles) from Taksim, Erdoğan, who has repeatedly insisted that the protests were part of a plot by bankers and foreign media to destabilise Turkey, was preparing to deliver a speech to thousands of supporters at a political rally. While Erdogan addressed the massive crowds in bright sunshine, much of the city was sullen and tense. In several districts middle-aged women kept up a steady racket by beating pots and pans from their balconies as riot police lounged around, sitting on pavement verges.
A similar speech in Ankara on Saturday before the raid was attended by tens of thousands, who cheered him as he warned protesters that security forces "know how to clear" the area. The police raids that started on Saturday afternoon and quickly cleared and occupied Gezi Park included acts of startling brutality that outraged normally apolitical Istanbul citizens, as well as human rights monitors.
The protests in Istanbul began as an environmental sit-in to prevent a development project at Gezi Park, but anger over a violent crackdown there on 31 May quickly spread to dozens of cities and spiralled into a broader expression of discontent with what many say is Erdoğan's increasingly authoritarian decision-making. Impromptu medical clinics housed in tents were invaded and tear-gassed. A luxury hotel on Taksim Square being used as an emergency refuge for victims and for the wounded was repeatedly invaded by the police and tear gas fired into the enclosed spaces.
He vehemently denies the charge, pointing to the strong support base that helped him win a third consecutive term with 50% of the vote in 2011. The protests have left at least five people dead, including a police officer, according to a Turkish rights group, and more than 5,000 injured, denting Erdoğan's international reputation. "It was horrible in there," said Mehmet Polat, 32. "They shot teargas inside the hotel several times, the gas rose up to the sixth floor of the hotel, everything was filled with white smoke."
Another young man next to him nodded. "People were shoving each other, panicking, but the police kept attacking us." Both were not giving up. "Our demands are very clear," Polat said. "And until they are met, we are not going anywhere."
But on Sunday Turkey's minister for European affairs, Egemen Bagis, said any civilians entering Taksim Square would be viewed as terrorists. Gezi Park was completely cleared of the gaudy paraphernalia of pluralist protest that had been its hallmark.
Stands, tents and banners were all gone. The central park fountain, hung with flags of a wide array of political factions on Saturday morning, was adorned with one single Turkish flag the following morning.
Istanbul's governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, said no one would be allowed to return to the park to protest.
Erdogan's confrontational style, his divisive rhetoric and the extreme force used by the police on victims who included young children, with one pregnant woman losing her baby on Saturday evening, have tarnished his credentials internationally as a reformist Muslim leader.
But the strong-arm tactics do not appear to have closed down the protests and have sown dismay among many non-political Turks.
One policeman guarding the entrance to Gezi Park said he was not happy with the way things were going: "The government is working against the people, and they are using the police to do it. They are handling it very badly. I hate doing this."
At a mobile clinic on the square, one medic said: "They promised us that they would not attack our field hospital, but they did anyway, firing six rounds of teargas directly into our tent.
"This is against all human rights agreements. A serious crime. Not even in war should medical facilities be attacked. But we will remain here and continue our work."
The Turkish health ministry has been issuing threats in recent days, warning that all health professionals treating protesters during the Gezi Park protests would be prosecuted.
Amnesty International said about 100 people had been detained and were being held incommunicado.
"The authorities are denying due process to those they have detained. The police must release them immediately or disclose their location and allow access to family members and lawyers," said Andrew Gardner, Turkey researcher at Amnesty International.
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