Turkish police fire tear gas on May Day protesters in Istanbul

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's administration is hugely nervous about public demonstrations ahead of legislative elections on June 7.

Turkish protesters clash with riot police officers in Istanbul on May Day, 2015. Deniz Toprak/EPA

ISTANBUL // Turkish police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse May Day protesters in Istanbul on Friday, as tens of thousands of labour activists turned out worldwide to defend their rights at a time of austerity.

Police had blocked all vehicle access and shut down public transport to prevent protests in Taksim Square in the centre of Istanbul, a traditional rallying point for protests in the country’s largest city.

Police moved in on protesters close to the Bosphorus in the district of Besiktas as they tried to head towards the square, using water cannon lorries and tear gas.

Earlier in the day, Istanbul’s police chief Selami Altinok said 136 people had been arrested throughout the city.

It was the first May Day, a national holiday in Turkey, since the country’s parliament passed a controversial security bill giving police greater powers to crack down on protests.

Turkish media said 20,000 police had been deployed in Istanbul backed by 62 water cannon lorries.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration was hugely nervous about public demonstrations ahead of legislative elections on June 7.

When Mr Erdogan was prime minister, his government was shaken by weeks of deadly anti-government protests in May-June 2013 that centred on Taksim Square.

“I find that this insisting on [protests in] Taksim is wrong and has a purpose. Having a meeting in Taksim means basically paralysing all Istanbul,” Mr Erdogan said at his presidential palace in the capital Ankara.

There were also clashes between protesters and police in the Italian city of Milan, where violence broke out at a demonstration against the start of Expo 2015, a global showpiece of culture and technology that is expected to draw millions of visitors to the country’s business capital.

Dozens of black-clad and masked demonstrators torched two cars, threw firecrackers and dragged burning rubbish bins to block streets in the centre of the city, while sirens rang out and police responded with tear gas.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, tens of thousands of workers held May Day rallies, vowing to wage an “all-out” general strike if the government pushed through planned labour reforms.

For the third week running South Koreans marched on the capital Seoul, protesting labour policies as well as the government’s handling of a ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people a year ago.

Demonstrators, many of them carrying banners and wearing yellow jackets, the colour identified with supporters of the families of the ferry disaster victims, occupied several downtown streets and sporadically clashed with police.

Twelve people were detained for allegedly assaulting police and other disorderly conduct.

In several streets, protesters tried to move buses that police were using to hem the demonstrators in. The police responded by pepper spraying the marchers.

In Turkey, a small group of Communist protesters who tried to protest in the centre of Taksim Square were immediately surrounded by police, who roughly arrested several people.

Taksim Square has been a flashpoint for clashes on Labour Day since dozens of people were killed there on May 1, 1977, when modern Turkey was going through one of its most turbulent periods.

“In 1977 there was a massacre. We simply want to be there [in Taksim] to commemorate that date. We cannot do it any other way. It is too symbolic for us,” said Umar Karatepe, a leader of the Disk labour confederation.

“The president, this man who usurps all our rights, cannot tell us that we are not able to celebrate May 1. It’s unacceptable.”

* Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press