San Francisco Frontiers - Police deploy in force for May Day in Istanbul, arrest hundreds

More than 50,000 officers were deployed in a massive show of force in the metropolis, a day after authorities shut metro, bus and ferry services.

This year's May Day comes as the government is embroiled in a showdown with the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), following the detention of its presidential candidate Ekrem Imamoglu.

Imamoglu, who is Istanbul's mayor, is the biggest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Some 400 people were arrested on Thursday, a day after 100 people were detained for allegedly planning to protest in the city's central Taksim Square, where demonstrations have been banned since 2013.

"The number of arrests that have been reported to us exceeds 400," the Istanbul branch of the CHD lawyers group wrote on X on Thursday.

A statement issued later by city authorities said that "382 individuals who had gathered to organise non-authorised demonstrations were detained," adding that 52,656 police officers had been deployed in the city.

AFP journalists witnessed several dozen people arrested in neighbourhoods on the European side of the city.

Several thousand people assembled in sanctioned protests called by labour unions on the Asian side of the city, according to local media and an AFP journalist.

"They blocked all the streets, as if it's a state of emergency," a student named Murat, who did not want to give his last name, told AFP. "They shows the government is scared."

On Wednesday, rights group Amnesty International urged Turkey to lift the ban on demonstrations in Taksim.

"The restrictions on May Day celebrations in Taksim Square are based on entirely spurious security and public order grounds and... must be urgently lifted," said Dinushika Dissanayake, an Amnesty's specialist on Europe.

As happens every year, the square has been sealed off with metal barriers for several days, with a heavy police presence.

J.Peterson--SFF