Nearly 40 people, including journalists, labor union members and opposition figures, were detained on Tuesday in İstanbul ahead of International Workers’ Day, celebrated on May 1, Turkish Minute reported, citing Agence France-Presse.
The İstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office told reporters that detention and search warrants had been issued for 62 people, 46 of whom it deemed “likely to carry out attacks.”
Of the 46, 39 were detained in İstanbul and in nearby Kocaeli, it added.
Turkey’s Media and Law Studies (MLSA), a press and legal freedom body, said police raids had been carried out at the home of a lawyer and the offices of opposition newspapers Özgür Gelecek and Yeni Demokrasi, where the doors were “kicked in.”
According to lawyer Serhat Alan, whose home was searched, “custody documents concerning 46 people were presented to him,” the MLSA said.
“Since this case is subject to a 24-hour confidentiality order, restrictions have been imposed on access to lawyers,” it added.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), the third-largest party in the Turkish Parliament, denounced what it said were “operations targeting the left and socialists” as well as student organizations before May 1.
“Numerous comrades have been taken into custody,” it said, adding that the actions were aimed at “shrinking the space for democratic politics” and that they would “deepen social tensions.”
A number of left-wing organizations, including the Revolutionary Tourism Workers’ Union (Dev Turizm- İş), the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), Student Solidarity, the Socialist Solidarity Platform (SODAP), the Socialist Refoundation Party (SYKP), the Youth Resistance Movement, the Student Initiative, the Free University Movement, the Federation of Socialist Assemblies and the Socialist Struggle Initiative, said in social media posts that some of their members were among those detained.
May 1, which celebrates workers and the working class, sees a major police deployment in Turkey every year, with a large area in the heart of İstanbul around Taksim Square is sealed off the previous evening.
Amnesty International has launched a campaign urging Turkish authorities to reopen Taksim Square for peaceful May Day demonstrations. Recalling that restrictions date back to the blocking of May 1 celebrations in 2013, the organization said confining protests to “designated areas” far from city centers undermines the essence of the right to protest.
Last year, protests moved to the Kadıköy area of the city, where more than 400 people were detained.
