In an open challenge to authorities, trade unionists gather hundreds to mark the workers holiday, banned for over 30 years. Heavey police intervention leaves 38 injured and 538 arrested.

Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Calm has returned to Istanbul after yesterday’s clashes which left 38 people injured and 538 arrested of participants in a march organised by the trade unions (Turk-is, Disk and Kesk) to mark the workers holiday May 1.  Police used batons, tear gas and water canon to disperse the crowds gathered in the Sisli district, to march on the central Taksim square.  In order to guarantee public security over 30 thousand police were mobilised.

Public demonstrations marking May 1st are banned in Turkey since 1977, when armed men – as yet unidentified – opened fire on demonstrators killing 36 leftist activists.  The “Bloody May 1st” is considered one of the historic factors which opened the road to the military state coup of 1980.

Ankara has decided to celebrate May Day as "Labour and Solidarity Day," but declined to declare it a national public holiday; the government has refused to allow public demonstrations be held in the historic Taksim square citing among other reasons “public order and traffic concerns”.  Some however, believe that authorities feared that this years event could have given way to mass demonstrations against the ruling AKP party.  The Islamic leaning group currently finds itself on trial at the Constitutional Court charged with representing a ‘threat to the secular nature of the state’.

• turkey
• istanbul
• protest
• may
• 1
• police
• ankara
• akp
• islamic
• arrests
• labour
• trade
• unions