Protests in Istanbul send 'mayday' for Turkish democracy
Demonstrators defied the security clampdown on Istanbul, leading to waves of arrests and another challenge to the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Any foreigner setting foot in Istanbul on the morning of May 1 would find a deserted megalopolis. The dazzling city spanning Europe and Asia, connected by two suspension bridges over the Bosporus strait and an undersea metro, looked as if it were in a state of emergency.
May 1, International Labor Day, in Istanbul has been alarming for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), indeed. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been paranoid since the Taksim Square/Gezi Park events of June 2013 about recurring use of Taksim Square for political protests, and he was determined to prevent it.
Taksim Square was the traditional May 1 celebration venue in Istanbul. Mammoth May 1 meetings took place there in the mid-1970s until the bloody events of May 1, 1977, when 34 people were killed and 136 injured. Pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese political groups clashed during the May 1 ceremonies, and a “third party” actually intervened and opened fire on hundreds of thousands of people that had massed at Taksim Square. Of these, 34 people were killed, some trampled by crowds, some hit by bullets. It has still not been determined who opened fire and, predictably, this incident, too, went down in history as an example of “deep-state provocation.”
May 1 observances at Taksim Square continued until 1980 with progressively smaller crowds. The junta government that took over with a coup in September 1980 declared Taksim off limits for public gatherings.
