By Jonathan Spicer and Huseyin Hayatsever
ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Anti-government protesters in Turkey said they planned to keep up a campaign of demonstrations triggered by the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor – the biggest such opposition action in a decade – despite mass arrests and clashes with police.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that what he dismissed as their “show” will fizzle out.
But since the arrest of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu last week, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in squares, streets and university campuses nationwide each evening chanting anti-Erdogan slogans and calling for Imamoglu’s release, justice and rights. A court jailed Imamoglu on Sunday pending trial on corruption charges which he denies.
Protesters, opposition parties, European leaders and rights groups have called the detention of Imamoglu, Erdogan’s main rival, a politicised and anti-democratic move.
The gatherings are banned but have carried on nonetheless, almost entirely peacefully until the late hours when police have used clubs and pepper spray in response to projectiles and arrested more than 1,400 people.
“I’ll try to come as much as I can because the government has left us no justice,” said one university student at Istanbul’s Sarachane park.
“I was scared when I first came, thinking we might get arrested. But I’m not scared now,” she said.
At the main nightly protest at the park between city hall and a towering Roman aqueduct, most people have cheered speeches by opposition leaders while others, some 200 metres (650 feet) away, have chanted and faced off with hundreds of white-helmeted riot police.
Other people also told Reuters they expect to continue daily protests even as the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said that Tuesday will mark the last day of planned events at Sarachane.
CHALLENGE TO ERDOGAN
The continued protests pose a potential bind for Erdogan, who has called them “street terrorism”. He has tolerated little criticism from the streets since authorities violently shut down the anti-government Gezi Park protests in 2013.
After a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday, 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.
On Tuesday, speaking to a group of young people in a Ramadan fast-breaking meal, Erdogan urged patience and common sense amid what he described as “very sensitive days”.
“Those who terrorize our streets and want to turn this country into a place of chaos have nowhere to go. The path they have taken is a dead end,” Erdogan said.
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.
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 Tuesday would be both “a great end and big kick off” to new rallies elsewhere, vowing to fight on.
He said the party will launch its election campaign with a rally this Saturday for presidential candidate Imamoglu. The CHP-majority council will elect an acting mayor on Wednesday.
On Monday 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 Monday evening 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 Monday. Many university professors observed a one-day protest strike on Tuesday.
The United Nations Human Rights Office urged Turkish authorities to ensure that the rights to freedom of expression and assembly are guaranteed, in line with international law.
However, a court on Tuesday jailed, pending trial, seven journalists, including AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, for “refusing to disperse despite warning during a demonstration,” a court document showed.
Since Imamoglu’s detention, Turkish financial assets have plunged, prompting the central bank to use reserves to support the lira.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told a call with international investors on Tuesday that authorities would do whatever was needed to tame the market jitters, and that the impact of the market turmoil would be limited and temporary.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer in Istanbul and Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara; Additional reporting by Alistair Bell)
