Turks vow to carry on with protests even as Erdogan says ‘show’ will end

ISTANBUL – Many Turkish anti-government protesters said they were bracing themselves for a long-term stand-off after six nights of action and scattered clashes with police over the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor, rejecting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claim that their “show” will fizzle out.

The largest protests in a decade began last week when Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – Mr Erdogan’s main rival – was detained in what protesters, opposition parties, European leaders and rights groups called a politicised and anti-democratic move.

Each evening since, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in squares, streets and university campuses nationwide chanting anti-Erdogan slogans and calling not only for Imamoglu’s release but also for justice and rights.

The gatherings are banned but have nonetheless carried on – almost entirely peacefully until the late hours when police have used clubs and pepper spray in response to projectiles to make more than 1,000 arrests in total.

At the main protest in Istanbul’s Sarachane park, between the city hall and a towering Roman aqueduct, most people have cheered speeches by opposition leaders while others, some 200m away, have chanted and faced off with hundreds of white-helmeted riot police.

“I think it will continue for a long time depending on how the people, police and the government react,” said one university student there. “I’ll try to come as much as I can... because the government has left us no justice.”

“I was scared when I first came, thinking we might get arrested. But I’m not scared now,” she said.

Others said they expect to continue daily protests, even as the main opposition Republic People’s Party (CHP) has said that March 25 will mark the last day of planned events at Sarachane.

Challenge to Erdogan

The continued protests pose a potential bind for Mr Erdogan, who has called them “street terrorism”. He has tolerated little criticism from the streets since the authorities violently shut down the sprawling anti-government Gezi Park protests in 2013.

After a Cabinet meeting in Ankara on March 24, the President accused the CHP of provoking citizens and predicted they would feel ashamed for the “evil” done to the country once their “show” fades away.

The government has rejected claims of political influence and says the judiciary is independent.

The hitherto more reserved CHP has in recent days repeatedly urged people out to the streets, echoing a call on March 23 by Imamoglu before he was jailed pending a trial on corruption charges that he denies.

CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel, who has given hoarse-voiced speeches from atop a bus at Sarachane park each evening, has said the last event there on March 25 would be both “a great end and big kick-off” to new rallies elsewhere, vowing to fight on.

He gave no details on the plans, but said he will keep staying overnight at city hall until the CHP-majority council there elects an acting mayor on March 26.

On March 24 at Sarachane, a physician said he hoped in coming days to also attend demonstrations at Silivri prison, where the mayor is behind bars, just outside the city.

“I hope it never stops,” he said of the rallies. “We are here because of justice and democracy and because we don’t believe that we are living in a democratic country.”

Elsewhere in Istanbul on the evening of March 24, a sit-in protest briefly blocked all traffic at the 19th-century Galata Bridge crossing the Golden Horn waterway.

Students have driven much of the civil disobedience, and many have boycotted university classes since that day. Academics in many universities observed a one-day protest strike on March 25.

The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Mr Michael O’Flaherty, on March 24 called on the Turkish authorities to immediately release protesters who were detained “for the legitimate exercise of their human rights”. REUTERS