Turkish violence marks May Day

ISTANBUL -- With wide-eyed tourists looking on, Turkish riot police plunged into groups of May Day demonstrators in Istanbul's main central square yesterday, wielding truncheons and dousing protesters with water and pepper spray as they fled down cobbled alleyways and side streets.

More than 700 people were arrested and hundreds reported injured.

The display of street turmoil came as the country's high court ruled in favor of the main opposition party, which had sought to invalidate the first round of parliamentary voting for president. That dispute has been marked by tension between religious and secular Turks.

Large-scale rallies have been staged over the past 2 1/2 weeks by secularists, who fear the ruling party's religiously observant candidate would pose a threat to the separation of Islam and state.

But those peaceful protests in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, were distinctly separate from the May Day demonstrations that are traditionally mounted by leftists to support workers' rights and freedom of assembly, among other causes.

Turkish riot police are known for taking a heavy hand with demonstrators, but yesterday's clashes were the worst in some years in the heart of Istanbul.

For decades, protesters have been banned from marching in large numbers in central Taksim Square, where nearly three dozen May Day demonstrators were killed in 1977 in a shooting and a subsequent stampede.

Yesterday, small groups of demonstrators were given permission to lay flowers in the square to commemorate the 30th anniversary of those deaths. But the gathering quickly turned violent, spilling down Istanbul's broad main pedestrian walkway, Istiklal Caddesi, which is lined with shops, theaters, and cafes, many of them housed in elegant turn-of-the-century buildings.

One cluster of demonstrators was chased down by club-wielding riot police in front of the five-star Marmara Hotel, which is popular with business travelers and tourists. Three middle-age women tourists from Sweden gaped in amazement as they emerged from the hotel just in time to see police bloody a long-haired young man with blows from truncheons, then kick at his prone body.

With images of the street unrest shown on television worldwide, commentators spoke worriedly over what they characterized was an international black eye for Turkey. The country has aspirations to join the European Union, although those hopes have faltered in recent months.

Concern over the country's image in the eyes of the world has been a theme in recent weeks amid the religious-secular tug of war over the presidency. Turkey's powerful military issued thinly veiled threats to intervene if it believes the Islamist-rooted ruling party, poised to win the presidency for the first time, failed to respect the secular system put in place by the republic's revered founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Prior to yesterday's court decision, the ruling party's candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, had insisted he would not renounce his candidacy. Now, however, the ruling Justice and Development party may call early general elections -- a contest in which it probably would do well.