Unions Urge For Taksim Square, Government Says A Wreath Is Enough

The Minister of Labor and Social Security Faruk Çelik and the Minister of Interior Beşir Atalay stated that they will make their final decision about the May Day celebration after they evaluate the demands of the unions.

In his meeting on Tuesday  with the heads of the union confederacies insistent on celebrating May Day (Labor Day) in Taksim Square, the prime minister Erdoğan stated in his Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary  group meeting, that the May Day celebrations in Taksim Square would be against the law, but they would not be against placing a wreath and a press meeting.

Unions insist on Taksim Square, because they want to commemorate the victims of the May Day celebration of 1977, the Bloody May Day, when shots were fired into the crowd and 35 people were killed either by the bullets or the panic that ensued. The gunmen were never caught.  Since that day Takism Square is closed by the local authorities to May Day celebrations, yet without convincing legal justification. However, the square often hosts mammouth New Year rallies, and Police day celebrations.

Erdoğan added that having a press statement with 50 thousand people will turn into "something else", repeating İstanbul governor Muammer Güler’s claims yesterday that the marginal, illegal and separatist groups will take advantage of the celebrations. Erdoğan also repeated that Taksim Square was not a meeting area, that even the political parties have their activities in the designated places.

Labor leader Çelebi: We do not want a limit on the number of participants to join the celebrations

During the live telephone interview with NTV, the head of the Revolutionary Confederation of Labor Unions (DİSK) Süleyman Çelebi stated that they did not claim Taksim Square was a meeting area.

“Our demand is to have our collective declaration there. Our demand was the same in the previous years. We just do not want to be restricted,” he told.

Against Erdoğan’s offer that “a wreath can be placed”, he replied, “we want an arrangement that will enable all the parties who want to participate in May Day celebration come together. We want to organize a widely attended commemoration. He also made the following statement against the complaints that Taksim was an important business center and that Istanbul would be paralyzed.

“We do not want to make people of İstanbul and ourselves suffer. We just want to shout our demands freely. There will not be another meeting. We want our meeting to be in Taksim and widely attended.”

Saying that they proposed Erdoğan to limit coming to Taksim down to three columns of people, Çelebi continued by adding that “All we want is that this place will not be closed down to us. What me mean by widely attended is that the participants can come to the square freely, without restrictions.”

The three confederations, DİSK, the Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK) and the Confederation of Labor Unions of Turkey had declared last week that they were planning to enter Taksim from three sides. (TK/GG)