Protesters clash with police near NATO summit
Date: 29-Jun-04
Country: TURKEY
Author: Baris Atayman
The violence erupted yesterday well away from the venue for the 26-nation two-day gathering, which is ringed by a tight security cordon.
Leftist protesters carrying red flags and shouting "Istanbul will be a graveyard for NATO" lobbed rocks and petrol-filled bottles at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon.
Television pictures showed at least one car overturned and others smashed. Petrol bombs blazed on the ground and people ran from billowing clouds of teargas.
A hospital official told Reuters around 30 protesters and police had been brought in for treatment. State-run Anatolian news agency said 15 people including five police officers were injured.
Witnesses said riot police and paramilitary gendarmes backed by armoured vehicles baton charged some 2,000 demonstrators in the Okmeydani area of Turkey's biggest city, about three km (two miles) west of the summit building.
Riot police also broke up a smaller crowd in the Mecidiyekoy area when they tried to march towards the summit about three km (two miles) to the south. A Reuters cameraman said at least six people were detained.
"Police used the gas immediately and dispersed the crowd as soon as they entered the square," he said. "It hurt my eyes a lot and we started to cough. We helped many people by giving them water," said shop assistant Mehmet Ali.
"NUKES OUT"
In a separate protest, Greenpeace activists dangling from a vast suspension bridge over the Bosphorus strait unfurled a 30-metre (yard) banner showing a dove of peace with a nuclear missile in its beak and the phrase "Nukes out of NATO".
"NATO is the world's largest military nuclear alliance. NATO is about 'keeping the peace' through a threat - the threat of using nuclear weapons," the environmental group said in a statement.
Turkish television later showed the banner fluttering down into the Bosphorus, which divides Europe and Asia. It was not clear what had happened to the activists.
Turkish authorities have designated several places where demonstrators can protest legally against the summit and the presence in Turkey of U.S. President George W. Bush, all of them far from the venue. Monday's protests were not authorised.
Protests in various Turkish cities at the weekend passed off with little trouble.
Small bomb blasts last week in Ankara and Istanbul put nerves on edge ahead of the summit.
