Police fire tear gas at protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim Square Tuesday, June 11. (Photo: Yannis Behrakis/ Reuters) Following threats made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that protesters will “pay a price” if they continue their mass demonstrations, Turkish police stormed Taksim Square Tuesday brandishing tear gas, water canons and rubber bullets, destroying the camp and dispersing the protesters who have occupied the square for over two weeks.
AFP reports:
Hundreds of police officers backed by armoured cars moved in on Taksim Square in the early morning in their first return to the site after pulling out on June 1, saying they wanted to remove makeshift barricades erected by protesters and clear the area of flags and banners.
The police action surprised protesters, hundreds of whom have been camping out in the adjoining Gezi Park, and came just hours after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Erdogan would meet with protest leaders Wednesday, in his first major concession since the deadly unrest began nearly two weeks ago.
Student Burak Arat, told AFP he was sleeping in Gezi Park when police moved in on the square
“We will fight. We want freedom. We are freedom fighters,” said student Burak Arat, who told AFP he was sleeping in Gezi Park–a “liberated zone” until now–until he awoke to the bursts of tear gas cannisters.
Tuesday afternoon, following the attack, police re-entered Taksim Square “to clean up signs of occupation,” Al Jazeera reports.
According to reports, police replaced the banners with a large Turkish flag and a banner with the picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular republic.
A statement from the office of Istanbul governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, said the demonstrators’ banners were making the square look as though it was under “occupation” and was “negatively affecting our country’s image in the eyes of the world opinion and leading to reaction from within the society,” the Guardian reports.
Addressing party officials, Edrogan added that Gezi Park “not a place to be occupied…there is a big game being played using Gezi Park as an excuse”.
Ahead of the removal, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Istanbul and the capital Ankara Monday evening, where police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Monday’s action was smaller than the mass demonstrations held over the weekend.
The national unrest first broke May 31 after police violently disrupted a peaceful protest to save Istanbul’s last green space, Gezi Park. Tensions have since spiraled into mass displays of anger against Edrogan and his “increasingly authoritarian” ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party.
The heavy handed police response has left two protesters dead and nearly 5,000 injured.
_____________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams