ISTNABUL: Police arrested more than 400 people in Istanbul on Thursday, with parts of Turkiye’s biggest city paralyzed in a bid to prevent May Day demonstrations, a lawyers group said.
On Wednesday city authorities closed metro, bus and ferry services in the metropolis and arrested 100 people who were allegedly planning to protest in the city’s central Taksim Square, where demonstrations have been banned since 2013.
This year’s May Day comes as the government is embroiled in a showdown with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CPH), 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.
“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.
There was no immediate comment on the detentions from city authorities.
AFP journalists witnessed several dozen people arrested in neighborhoods on the European side of the city.
Several thousand people assembled in sanctioned protests called by labor unions on the Asian side of the city, according to local media and an AFP journalist.
On Wednesday, rights group Amnesty International urged Turkiye 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.
Police arrest 400 in Istanbul: lawyers group
https://arab.news/4cazb
Police arrest 400 in Istanbul: lawyers group
- “The number of arrests that have been reported to us exceeds 400,” the Istanbul branch of the CHD lawyers group wrote on X
- There was no immediate comment on the detentions from city authorities
Iran close to deal with China to buy supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles
- Giant aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford docks in Crete en route to Middle East
LONDON: Iran is close to a deal with China to purchase supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, as the US deploys a vast naval force near the Iranian coast ahead of possible strikes.
The CM-302 missiles have a range of about 290 kilometers and are designed to evade shipborne defences by flying low and fast. Their deployment would significantly enhance Iran’s strike capabilities and pose a threat to US naval forces in the region, two weapons experts said.
“It’s a complete gamechanger if Iran has supersonic capability to attack ships in the area,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer and now senior Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank in Israel. “These missiles are very difficult to intercept.”
It is not known how many missiles are involved in the potential deal, how much Iran has agreed to pay, or whether China would go through with the agreement given heightened tensions in the region.
“Iran has military and security agreements with its allies, and now is an appropriate time to make use of these agreements,” an Iranian foreign ministry official said.
Meanwhile the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest warship, has reached the US naval base of Souda Bay on the Mediterranean island of Crete en route to the Middle East.
Washington has more than a dozen warships in the region: the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, nine destroyers and three combat ships.
