Turkey: Update on the marches towards Taksim
Featured image: Partizan readers march from Mecidiyeköy to Taksim square. Source: Yeni Demokras’s X account.
Yeni Demokrasi reports that “Despite the days of detention attacks in Istanbul and the de facto declaration of a state of emergency by the Istanbul Governor’s Office, workers, laborers, revolutionaries, women, youth, and LGBTI+ people took to the barricades with the will of Taksim from the early hours of the morning.”
Thousands of protesters in Istanbul decided to march to take Taksim Square, which as Partizan highlighted in several statements, “belongs to the people”. Thousands were gathering in front of the Sisli Mosque in Mecidiyeköy to prepare the marches to Taksim, despite the police blockades, heavy repressive forces presence and all the threats and warnings by the Turkish State. At least 50,000 police officers were deployed and public transport was shut down. Passers by were detained since the beginning of the morning of yesterday and many police attacks took place against the demonstrators gathering in Mecidiyeköy.
The protesters fought back the police attacks and also clashed and assaulted the police barricades:
Yeni Demokrasi reports on more than 400 arrests, among them Partizan readers as well as ESP and SGDF members:
Several of the arrests were done under torture:
After the arrests the police forces even attacked the lawyers who wanted to attend their clients, thus being denied the most basic rights of the arrested people:
