Protesters near Taksim Square in Istanbul, in June 2013. (Credit: AFP.)
Several dozen protesters commemorating the twelfth anniversary of the Gezi events, a large anti-government protest in 2013, were arrested Saturday night in Istanbul, lawyers reported.
"We have been informed that at least 87 people have been arrested," said the Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD) on X, specifying that "barriers have been erected to prevent lawyers from accessing" the police headquarters. No report has been released by the authorities or by the state agency Anodolu. On X, several young people reported with a message: "We are arrested."
Once again, the crowd was prevented Saturday night from gathering at the iconic Taksim Square, adjacent to Gezi Park and the heart of the protest, which had been closed off by barriers since the morning. The subway station was also closed, according to AFP. The protesters, therefore, gathered in the early evening on a street near the Beyoglu district, under banners proclaiming "darkness goes away, Gezi remains," "Taksim everywhere, Resistance everywhere," and slogans calling for gathering, a legacy of the Gezi movement that shook the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then Prime Minister, for three weeks.
The gathering, called for early in the evening, took place more than two months after the wave of protests triggered by the arrest of Istanbul's opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19, accused of "corruption."
The official, a main rival to Erdogan, denies the accusations. He has been detained since March 25 in the large Silivri prison, west of Istanbul, along with dozens of his associates. Nearly fifty arrest warrants were again issued Saturday against members of the municipality, 28 of whom were arrested Saturday morning.