Tag: police

Turkey: Police deploys tear gas on thousands

Turkish flag depicting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as thousands gather in Istanbul's Taksim square June 9, 2013

Police again deployed tear gas and water cannons to quell more than thousands protesters that gathered in downtown Ankara. Just a few kilometers away, the Turkish PM was addressing his supporters after warning his patience with the demos “has a limit”.

At least two people were injured in fresh clashes in downtown Kizilay square in the Turkish capital, AFP reported.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, was meanwhile addressing supporters elsewhere in the city, calling on them to prepare for pro-government rallies next weekend in Istanbul and Ankara.

“On Saturday, are you ready for a big Ankara meeting? … The next day we will have the Istanbul meeting,” Erdogan said to cheering crowds in Ankara, as riot police moved in against protesters.

On Sunday, Erdogan held a string of pro-government rallies across the country.

Erdogan remained defiant over the ongoing protests, again calling the protesters “marauders” and urging the supporters of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) to “teach them a lesson” at the next local polls as he spoke in the southern Turkish city of Adana.

“Those now at Taksim, those who burn and destroy, those at various places across the country, I ask them, in the name of which freedom are you doing this?” Erdogan said in a speech at the Mediterranean Games in Mersin.

“There is an end to our patience,” Erdogan warned in Ankara airport, as the massive crowd of his supporters chanted slogans like “We are ready die for you, Tayyip!”

The Taksim protesters do not represent all the people of Turkey, the prime minister argued.

“Are the people only those at Gezi Park? Aren’t those who came to meet us at Istanbul airport people too? Those who are gathered now in Ankara; aren’t they people, too?” he exclaimed.

On Saturday night, a rally in the Turkish capital which started peacefully was also dispersed with tear gas and water cannons. According to witness reports on Twitter police were targeting and detaining “random” youths in the crowd. At least three arrests were reportedly made.

Authorities deployed over 4,000 riot police to quell the unrest, witnesses claim.

In Istanbul, a massive crowd packed the whole of Taksim Square was joined by the fans from rival football teams Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Galatasaray, AFP reports. Police kept away from the scene. In the city’s western Gazi neighborhood things did not go so peacefully as protesters hurled incendiary devices and taunted police, which resulted in fresh clashes.

Earlier, parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek said the mass protests that have been gripping the country are now “under control” and the process “is becoming normalized and increasingly in line with common sense.”

“We are ready to listen to all reasonable, legal and democratic demands,” he added.

At the same time, Istanbul’s mayor declared that Gezi Park would not be used as a venue to build a shopping mall, but the project to create a replica of Ottoman-era military barracks there would continue.

“We are definitely not thinking of building a shopping mall there, no hotel or residence either. It can be… a city museum or an exhibition center,” Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas said as quoted by AFP. “The plan for the barracks was part of our election promises, the people gave us the authority to do it.”

The Turkish government dismissed press rumors of an early election on Saturday following the party meeting on the grounds it was unnecessary. Prime Minister Erdogan, who has been criticized by protesters for his overly authoritarian ruling style, returned to Turkey on Thursday night to a throng of supporters at Istanbul airport. A number of counter-demonstrations are said to be planned next week, as anti-government protests enter their 10th day.

Social upheaval began in Turkey last week when a demonstration against the demolition of a central park in Istanbul was brutally dispersed by police. In response, protesters occupied Istanbul’s Taksim Square and clashed with police repeatedly during the subsequent days. Many are calling for Prime Minister Erdogan’s resignation.

‘1202 police firearms missing’ – South African minister

A total of 1202 police firearms have gone missing since the beginning of last year, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa revealed on Wednesday.

Mthethwa said in a written Parliamentary response that 885 firearms were lost or stolen last year and 317 this year. Of those 170 had been recovered.

The Democratic Alliance said the large number of lost police firearms was fuelling an illicit trade in weapons.

“This means that the majority of these dangerous weapons are still out there on the street, most likely being used to commit crime,” said DA spokeswoman Dianne Kohler-Barnard.

“The reality is that the SAPS is fuelling the illegal firearms trade in this country.” – Sapa

Two more miners killed by police, one dragged by armoured car

Amplats strikers
Amplats strikers

RUSTENBURG, South Africa (AP) — Days after soldiers were deployed, South African President Jacob Zuma’s office announced Thursday he has ordered military forces to assist police trying to control labor unrest in the nation’s crucial mining sector. Despite resolution of the longest and bloodiest strike, two more deaths were reported.

Even as miners returned to work Thursday at the Lonmin PLC platinum mine in Marikana where police killed 34 miners on Aug. 16 labor advocates said police killed two more people: a ruling party municipal councilor who died of injuries from a rubber bullet and a miner who was run over by an armored car.

Zuma’s office said he was invoking the Constitution to use the military to support police “in the prevention and combating of crime as well as the maintenance of law and order in the Marikana Area … and other areas around the country where needed” until Jan. 31. The notice from the presidency referred to section 201 (2) of the Constitution, which states that “only the President, as head of the national executive, may authorize the employment of the defense force.”

Last weekend some 1,000 soldiers were trucked into the “platinum belt” northwest of Johannesburg.

Thursday morning, police in two water cannon trucks and several armored cars confronted striking Anglo American Platinum miners at a shantytown where residents set up barricades of rocks and burning tires and logs. Before long, the fires died down and most of the police pulled back. The people dispersed, leaving a herd of goats milling around the water cannons. Strike leader Evans Ramokga told The Associated Press that one miner was run over Wednesday by a police armored car and dragged several meters (feet) before it stopped. He said the man died overnight in the hospital.

Police spokesman Dennis Adriao said he was unaware of the incident which occurred at the scene where police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to break up a march by thousands of strikers. The mines near Rustenburg belong to Anglo American Platinum, the world’s largest platinum producer.

“The only thing we want is to sit down and have them hear our demands,” Ramokga said. He said authorities have refused to give permission for the thousands of strikers among Anglo’s 15,000 workers there to hold a protest march to back their demands for a gross monthly salary of 16,070 rand ($2,000).

Anglo issued an ultimatum for workers to report for duty by Thursday night or threatened to act on a court order declaring the strike illegal. That gives Anglo the power to fire strikers.

“Anglo American Platinum’s Rustenburg mining operations are already under considerable economic pressure, any further delays in returning to work will only increase the risk to the long-term viability of these mines,” it said in a statement late Wednesday.

The Marikana Solidarity Campaign meanwhile reported that African National Congress councilor Paulina Masutlhe was shopping Saturday at the Wonderkop shantytown where Lonmin platinum miners live when police firing from a speeding armored car hit several women. Masutlhe was hit in the abdomen and leg and rushed to the hospital, where she died Wednesday, a statement said.

Adriao said he is investigating the report of a death. He said police had reported to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate that several people were hit by rubber bullets in a raid to disarm strikers on Saturday, the day after the government ordered a crackdown.

The directorate already has opened 34 murder and 78 attempted murder charges against police in the Aug. 16 shootings, the worst state violence since the white minority apartheid regime was brought down in 1994. The government has said it is awaiting the outcome of a judicial commission of inquiry that is to report to the president in January.

The solidarity campaign condemned the brutality of police and called for “the immediate identification and suspension of the police officers involved in her (Masutlhe’s) murder. “

“We are also extremely unhappy that, to date, none of the police officers involved in the massacre on 16 August 2012 has been identified or suspended – this is totally unacceptable and unlawful,” said the campaign that includes the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions that is part of a governing alliance with the African National Congress party and the South African Communist Party.

The deaths at the two mines, both northwest of Johannesburg, bring the strike-related death toll to 47.

Lonmin on Tuesday resolved its five-week strike by agreeing to pay raises of 16 to 22 percent.

The strike already has spread to several gold, platinum and chrome mines, damaging investor confidence in the country that produces 75 percent of world platinum and is the No. 4 chrome producer and in the top 10 of gold producers.

Amcu calls for independent commission of enquiry as mineworkers were ambushed at Marikana

The Association for Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has called for an independent commission of inquiry into the killing of 34 striking mine workers at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine, in Rustenburg.

“As much as the president of South Africa has called for a commission of inquiry, we are not different to that, but what we are calling for is an independent and outside body that could deal with the root cause of this matter,” Amcu secretary Jeff Mphahlele said on Wednesday.

He was speaking at a public meeting at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

“We do not trust the terms of reference [of the inquiry ordered by Zuma]… Where are they coming from, but [from] the very same people who killed our people?”

On Thursday, police shot dead 34 people and wounded 78 others while trying to disperse a group of striking workers gathered on a hill near the mine.

Zuma has since appointed an inter-ministerial commission of inquiry into the shooting.

It would be led by Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane. Its members are: North West premier Thandi Modise and the ministers of mineral resources Susan Shabangu, police Nathi Mthethwa, social development Bathabile Dlamini, co-operative governance Richard Baloyi, labour Mildred Oliphant, defence and military veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, health Aaron Motsoaledi, state security Siyabonga Cwele, and home affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Referring to Zuma, Mphahlele asked: “How can you be player and referee at the same time?”

Mphahlele said police officers shot not only at miners who were apparently attacking them, but also shot miners in the back, as they ran away from bullets. Their bodies were found close to a nearby informal settlement.

“They [miners] were being chased from behind and those [police] who were in front had hidden behind the nyalas,” he said.

UJ’s social change research chair Peter Alexander claimed the killings in Marikana were a deliberate, “pre-meditated massacre”.

He said the public had only seen video footage from cameras placed in front of the crowd.

Aside from mine workers shot for apparently attacking the police, more bodies were found a distance away from the police barrier.

“You haven’t heard about this and have heard what the government wants us to hear,” he said.

“They want us to hear stories about people coming down from the mountain with their spears about to attack police.”

He said mine workers had been attacked with rubber bullets and teargas from behind and that as they ran away, they ran towards the police, where they were killed.

Alexander said he based this on his interviews with striking mine workers after the shooting. – SAPA

18 dead in Lonmin shootout

An attempt by the police on Thursday to disperse striking workers at Marikana’s troubled Lonmin mine ended in a shootout between the two groups.

A Sapa reporter at the scene said he counted 18 bodies lying next to the nearby Wonderkop squatter camp. The shooting lasted about three minutes.

Police had tried to intercept a section of the strikers gathered on top of a hill.

The strikers were wielding pangas and chanting war songs. Police fired teargas and then used a water cannon to disperse the strikers, who retaliated by firing live ammunition at the police.

The area around the hill, which the strikers had turned into their base for the past few days, was cordoned off with barbed wire.

The strikers scattered towards the squatter camp and the nearby veld.

Police spokesman Captain Dennis Adriao told journalists at the scene police had been “tactical” in their approach and that the situation was tense. – Sapa

Pro-South African and ‘Occupy’ protestors clash in Californian capital

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At least two law enforcement officers were injured Monday during a clash with members of the Occupy movement who were at the state Capitol to counter a rally by a group protesting violence by blacks against whites in South Africa.

The clash erupted in the afternoon as California Highway Patrol and Sacramento police officers were escorting about 35 members of the South Africa Project to a parking garage after their protest outside the Capitol building.

About 50 members of Occupy Oakland began throwing cans and bottles at the South Africa group and at the officers. The Occupy members then clashed with the officers as people with the pro-whites group hurried into the parking garage.

“It was the activists across the street engaging the officers,” said CHP officer Sean Kennedy.

Two officers suffered minor injuries and were taken to a hospital. CHP Capt. Andy Menard said one officer who was struck in the face by an object was released from the hospital. The second officer was getting X-rays after apprehending a person suspected of throwing objects, Menard said.

Kennedy said the officer who was struck by an object was showing signs of possibly being affected by some type of chemical or pepper spray.

The CHP arrested three members of the Occupy group on suspicion of disobeying an officer.

The violence abated after a large contingent of law enforcement arrived at the scene, about a block from the Capitol.

The clash followed a tense afternoon during which peace officers kept the two groups separated outside the Capitol.

Members of the South Africa Project were trying to draw attention to what they said is black-on-white violence in that country. Organizers said similar demonstrations were planned in other states and elsewhere in California.

The group was mostly male and white, some with shaved heads and prominent tattoos.

Many of the Occupy protesters, some wearing hoods or masks, said they came from the San Francisco Bay area to counter what they called a racist group affiliated with former Louisiana Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Morris Gulett, a spokeman for the South Africa Project, called the clash in Sacramento unfortunate.

“It’s not surprising that the counter-protesters got in the way of the peaceful march we wanted it to be,” Gulett said. “Our intention was to conduct a peaceful march.”

Occupy protesters had been cursing at the South Africa Project rally and at officers keeping the two sides apart.

Ryan Stark, 26, who said he is part of Occupy Sacramento, said he joined the protesters challenging the South Africa Project protesters because there needed to be a showdown.

“I didn’t throw anything … but these sorts of demonstrations need to happen,” he said, referring to the counter protest. “They do have the right to say what they want, but we’re not going to let it fly.”

The public was being kept away from the scene of the confrontation by police officers, who were not commenting to reporters. The city’s light rail system was stopped through the section of downtown where the clash occurred, and commuters were not allowed to leave the area.

Earlier in the day, a 17-year-old girl with Occupy Oakland was taken to Juvenile Hall after she became combative and assaulted an officer who asked her to pick up litter, Kennedy said.

Associated Press photographer Rich Pedroncelli contributed to this report.