Turkey Prime Minister Defiant As Police and Demonstators Clash

Turkish youth clash with police for a second day in Istanbul and Ankara. The NATO government has closed a park to promote capitalist development., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Turkey's PM defiant as police and demonstrators clash

Unrest targets government limits on alcohol, public displays of affection

The Associated Press Posted: May 31, 2013 12:15 PM ET Last Updated: Jun 1, 2013

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called on demonstrators to end anti-government protests now into a second day, but he remained defiant, insisting police would break down protests at a main Istanbul square and indicating that the government would press ahead with the redevelopment plans that sparked the demonstrations.

In a televised speech, Erdogan said police may have used tear gas excessively while confronting protesters and said this would be investigated.

Nevertheless, police let off more tear gas and pressurized water against protesters trying to reach a main square in Istanbul or the Parliament building in the capital, Ankara.

The protests grew out of anger at heavy-handed police tactics to break up a peaceful sit-in by people trying to protect a park in Istanbul's main Taksim square on Friday.

Bulent Arinc, the deputy prime minister, said the government was wrong to break up the peaceful protest with tear gas and said he welcomed a court's decision that suspended the uprooting of the park.

"It would have been more helpful to try and persuade people who said they didn't want a shopping mall instead of spraying them with tear gas," Arinc told reporters. He was referring to government plans to revamp Taksim, which officials have said include building a shopping mall and the reconstruction of a former Ottoman army barracks.

The park demonstration turned into a wider protest against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seen as becoming increasingly authoritarian, and spread to other Turkish cities despite the court decision to temporarily halt the demolition of the park. A human rights group said hundreds of people were injured in scuffles with police that lasted through the night.

The leader of Turkey's pro-secular, main opposition party called on Erdogan to immediately withdraw police from Taksim and to publicly announce that he was abiding by the court decision.

"Show us that you are the prime minister, pull back your police," Kemal Kilicdaroglu said.

On Saturday, police clashed with several groups of youths trying to reach Taksim, the city's main hub and shopping center. Some threw stones at police.

The Dogan news agency reported 81 demonstrators were detained in Istanbul.

Police took action on the fourth day of the sit-in against a government plan to revamp Taksim square. Officers clashed with angry demonstrators in surrounding areas, firing tear gas canisters and pushing people back with water cannon. A cloud of smoke from the gas filled the square and scattered protests continued into the night.

New law alarms secular Turks

Last week, the government enacted a law restricting the sale and advertising of alcohol, a move that has alarmed secular Turks.

Earlier this week, the government went ahead with a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a disputed third bridge across the Bosporus Strait that some say will destroy the few remaining green areas of the sprawling city. It also named the bridge after a controversial Ottoman sultan believed to have ordered a massacre of a minority Shiite Muslim group, instead of choosing a more unifying figure.

Protesters in Gezi Park held up a large poster Friday with a caricature depicting Erdogan as an Ottoman sultan with a caption that read: "The people won't yield to you."

Protester Serdar Sanman accused Erdogan of "trying to install his dictatorship."

Erdogan's Islamic-rooted, conservative government has a strong support base in the mainly Muslim but secular country, and many of the protesters appeared to be from more secular-leaning sections of society.

In Ankara, demonstrators held up posters reading: "Don't Interfere in my Lifestyle" and "Resist the Dictator." Many drank beer and other alcoholic beverages during the protest in defiance of the alcohol restrictions, raising their drinks as they chanted "Cheers Tayyip!" They lined the pavement with empty beer and liquor bottles and cans.

Demands dismissed

Erdogan this week dismissed the Istanbul protesters' demands, saying the government would go ahead with the renovation plans "no matter what they do." The forestry minister said more trees would be planted than those uprooted at Gezi.

The dawn raid was the latest in a series of aggressive crackdown on protests. Human rights activists frequently accuse Turkish police of using inordinate force to break up protests and of excessively using tear gas and pepper spray against protesters.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said that authorities would investigate the reports of disproportionate use of force. Still, he defended the crackdown, saying officers were carrying out their duties against an illegal occupation of the park.

In Istanbul, several protesters were injured when a wall they climbed on collapsed during a police chase, and at least two people — including a journalist — were hit in the head by tear gas canisters. Two opposition legislators were among several hospitalized after being affected by the gas, the private Dogan news agency reported.

Istanbul Gov. Huseyin Avni Mutlu said 12 people were treated in hospitals for injuries and least 13 people were detained.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. was concerned about the number of people injured as police dispersed protesters.

"We believe that Turkey's long-term stability, security and prosperity is best guaranteed by upholding the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association, which is what it seems these individuals were doing," she told reporters. "These freedoms are crucial to any healthy democracy."

Psaki said the U.S. was still gathering information about the incident.

There was very little coverage of the protests on television channels in Turkey, reflecting the environment of self-censorship by the media, which has, among other things, been pressured into dismissing staff too critical of the government.

The media rights group Reporters without Borders said the injured journalist, Ahmet Sik, and others were deliberately targeted by police and urged Turkish authorities to halt the "excessive" use of force. A Reuters photographer was also injured.

Amnesty International also deplored what it called Turkish police brutality and said some officers should be brought to justice.

Demonstrators affected by tear gas sought shelter at a luxury hotel at Taksim and were tended by guests. Police removed tents and the demonstrators' belongings and mounted barricades around the park.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said 15 demonstrators were detained in Ankara.

"The people are demonstrating against the government's intolerance toward demonstrations," said Metin Feyzioglu, who heads Turkey's lawyers' association, during the protest in Ankara. "The government must display understanding and immediately stop the violence against the demonstrators."