Hundreds of people were arrested in Istanbul, with 50,000 police officers deployed in the city while the authorities are trying to repress the May 1 demonstrations.
Public transport has been closed to prevent people from reaching Taksim Square, where demonstrations have been prohibited since 2013.
Images of the Turkish capital have shown clashes between riot police and demonstrators with singing protesters while the police move the forces on the buses.
The city saw enormous demonstrations in March after the arrest of the mayor of the opposition Ekrem Imamoglu – the main rival of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On May 1 each year, the marches led by workers and unions are organized as part of the international labor celebrations in many countries.
Taksim Square – The heart of Istanbul – was under a tight lock, with police and metal barriers along all the roads leading to the region.
The authorities were determined, perhaps more than ever this year, to ensure that there were no major demonstrations on the place, and they had enough riot police to ensure this.
The place, normally occupied with lively crowds, looked lifeless, with restaurants and closed stores.
The only way to pass the police lines was with permission. Several unions have been briefly authorized on Taksim, wearing red banners and flowers.
Standing in front of the monument of the Republic, which commemorates the foundation of modern Turkey in 1923, a speaker complained about the restrictions they were confronted with. Trucks with canon water has parked at a short distance.
On the roads leading instead, groups of tourists passed on foot from time to time, causing suitcases, uncertain of the place where they could go and unable to reach taxis.
The place was sealed for several days before May 1, according to the AFP news agency.
A student named Murat said that the streets had been “blocked … as if it was a state of emergency,” he told AFP.
“We were not allowed to enter the squares … We were taken from streets to small groups under torture. This is not a situation we are facing for the first time. It will probably not be the last.”
On Wednesday, 100 people were detained for pretended to protest in the square.
City authorities said Thursday that 382 people were arrested for “unauthorized demonstrations”.
The Amnesty International rights group urged Turkey to raise the ban on demonstrations in Taksim.
The restrictions “are based on completely false security and public order fields,” said Dinushika Dissanayake, Amnesty specialist on Europe.
In a statement, the group called on officials to respect the right to protest and “not to use force against peaceful demonstrators”.
The arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu in March triggered mass demonstrations in the streets of Istanbul while hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators came out to support the mayor of Istanbul, who is detained in prison for corruption he denies.
He said his arrest was political, but the government denied this and insisted that the Turkish courts are fully independent.
Mayor since 2019, Imamoglu is widely considered as the only politician capable of challenging Erdogan in the 2028 elections. Imamoglu was confirmed as a candidate of the opposition party when he was in detention.
Erdogan has been in power for over 20 years, first as Prime Minister and then as president of 2014. He can no longer present himself to the presidency after 2028 – unless he changes the Constitution of Turkey.
