EU’s Catherine Ashton moved to condemn unrest in Istanbul as continued rioting entered its fourth day on Monday, with the foreign policy chief expressing “concern” over the “disproportionate use of force by members of the Turkish police”.
Calling for “a peaceful solution” to the spreading protests which the police force has sought to contain using tear gas on demonstrators outside Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office, Ashton insisted that open dialogue between government and opposition forces was the only way to end the conflict, which is increasingly being regarded as a Turkish Spring by international observers.
One of the main sites for protesters, Istanbul’s Gezi Park, has drawn comparisons with Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the renowned nerve centre for Egypt’s own Arab Spring movement in 2011.
The often controversial premier however sought to head off such suggestions, despite widespread concern over recent months of the likelihood of Turkey being drawn into the escalating civil conflict in neighbouring Syria, as he insisted demonstrations were organised by extremists “with affiliations both within Turkey and abroad”. The situation was being exacerbating thanks to attempts by Turkish opposition party CHP to “provoke my citizens”, he added.
Official figures have placed the number of protesters detained by police at 1,700, as demonstrations spread from the capital to 67 towns and cities across Turkey. The protests have come in response to what is seen domestically as Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s increasingly authoritarian leadership, which has seen the PM align with Islamist militants Hamas in Gaza, ahead of a planned visit to the Strip later this month.
The unrest was sparked by the government’s passing of Islamist-inspired legislation last week to tem the sale and advertising of alcoholic drinks. Erdogan has further condemned the protests, during the course of which demonstrators in the Besiktas area of Istanbul tore up paving stones to use as barricades against police overnight Sunday. Further incidents have been reported in the capital of Ankara, as well as the south-eastern town of Gaziantep, the Syrian border town which was the scene of a car explosion last August which claimed the lives of nine Turkish nationals in an attack for which Erdogan’s government implicated the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has since announced plans to disarm.
Condemning the violence as unrest first broke out Friday, US State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said the US was 2concerns about the number of people who were injured when police dispersed protesters in Istanbul’s Gezi Park”. “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. These freedoms are crucial to any healthy democracy,” she added.
Seemingly unwilling to condemn the Turkish government, with which the US has increasingly sought to ally, successfully lobbying Erdogan to end his country’s diplomatic impasse with Israel earlier this year and collaborating with hi administration in their attempts to bring about a transition in Syria and to further the stalled Middle East peace process, however, Psaki insisted the US authorities were “still gathering out own information on the incident”.
Meanwhile a report by human rights group Amnesty International Saturday conclude that “urgent steps must be taken by the Turkish authorities to prevent further deaths and injuries and allow protesters access to their fundamental rights, as well as ensuring the security of all members of the public”, as it announced its Istanbul offices were being kept open as “a safe haven for protesters escaping police violence throughout the night”.
Relaying reports of more than 1,000 injured protesters and two deaths as a result of the clashes, John Dalhuisen, Director of Amnesty International for Europe said: “Excessive use of force by police officers can be routine in Turkey but the excessively heavy-handed response to the entirely peaceful protests in Taksim has been truly disgraceful. It has hugely inflamed the situation on the streets of Istanbul where scores of people have been injured.”
Amnesty claimed to have received 49 complaints from individuals alleging ill-treatment by police while being held in detention as a result of the protests, with charges including being enclosed in overcrowded police vehicles for up to 12 hours without access to food, water or toilet facilities, as well as the injured being denied access to suitable medical care.
"It is clear that the use of force by police is being driven not by the need to respond to violence - of which there has been very little on the part of protesters - but by a desire to prevent and discourage protest of any kind," said Dalhuisen. Appealing to Erdogan to intervene to curtail police violence against demonstrators as well as ill-treatment of detained protesters, he concluded: "The Turkish authorities must allow peaceful protest to proceed, urgently revise police tactics and investigate - and hold accountable - those responsible for the abuses we are seeing.”