Turkey detains hundreds of workers protesting over labor conditions at new airport

Turkish police have attacked a protest rally held over labor conditions and arrested hundreds of workers at Istanbul’s new airport, a labor union says.

According to Ozgur Karabulut, general manager of the Dev Yapi-Is labor union, thousands of workers had participated in the rally on Saturday, only to be broken up by police and security forces deploying in riot control vehicles and firing tear gas canisters at crowds of protesters.

The protest demonstration was triggered on Friday, when a shuttle bus accident injured 17 workers of the project, he added.

“They broke into the workers’ camp with 30 gendarmes, broke down the doors and detained around 500 workers,” Karabulut further said, adding that at the meantime he was at a local gendarmerie where he was seeking the workers’ release.

However, opposition lawmaker, Ali Bayar, from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), put the number of those detained at around 400.

Istanbul’s new airport, which Ankara says will be the biggest in the world, is a giant project championed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and is due to open at the end of October.

It is also one of the showcase projects of a 15-year construction boom under the Turkish leader who has overseen building of bridges, ports and railways which have transformed the Anatolian country.

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Labor unions have long protested about working conditions and labor safety at the site of the new airport, however, under a state of emergency imposed shortly a botched mid-July 2016 military coup and only lifted in July this year, rights to strike or protest were curtailed.

The workers’ quarters “look like a detention camp...When we went there this morning gendarmerie soldiers were still detaining workers,” Bayar further said.

Back in February, Turkey's Labor and Social Security Minister Julide Sarieroglu said 27 workers had lost their lives at the airport since the start of work there in 2015, mainly from work accidents or health problems.

Most of the workers “had to go to work today under pressure and under threat,” Karabulut said, adding, “So they went to work today unwillingly but they want the public to know that they will be protesting tonight if their friends are not released.”

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of having links to the failed coup’s suspected operators. More than 110,000 others, including military staff, civil servants and journalists, have been sacked or suspended from work over the same accusations.

The international community and rights groups have been highly critical of the Turkish president over the massive dismissals and the crackdown.

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The US has imposed sanctions on two Turkish ministers and doubled steel and aluminum tariffs, which have led to a sharp decline in Turkey's currency.

Washington took the punitive measures in protest at Ankara's detention of American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who has been accused of having links with terror organizations in Turkey.

The lira has fallen more than 40 percent against the dollar this year, driving up the cost of food and fuel and sending inflation soaring to 18 percent, its highest in a decade and a half.

Erdogan accuses the White House of launching an economic war against Ankara, describing the move as a “coup” against the Turkish economy.

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