Police in Turkey attack people holding a ceremony for those killed in Ankara Massacre

On the second year anniversary of the Ankara Massacre, authorities in Turkey again attacked the family members of the victims of the massacre and the members of the democracy forces who had gathered at the massacre site for the commemoration ceremony.

All roads around the train station, where ISIL’s two suicide bomb attacks killed over a hundred people and left hundreds wounded two years ago at the beginning of the Labor, Peace and Democracy Rally, were blocked by police forces earlier today (October 10).

As Burcu Cansu from BirGün reported, families and representatives of a number of civil society groups were stopped by the police as they wanted to march to the train station to hold their ceremony.

Attacking the marching group with pepper gas and plastic bullets, police then followed the dispersed group and also used water cannon and pepper gas at the office of the Chamber of Construction Engineers, where the attacked group wanted to gather instead and read their press release.

15 people who wanted to join the ceremony were taken into custody at different sites in Ankara, Cansu reported.

People trying to leave flowers at the monument in Turkey’s downtown Kızılay were also not allowed to do so.

Ceremonies were also not allowed last year.

Protesting the authorities and the attack of the police forces, representatives from labor unions and other participating civil society institutions, as well as, the October 10 Peace and Solidarity Association, vowed to ‘continue their fight until those responsible are brought to justice’.

While the attack of the police was also condemned by members of the public on social media, the mainstream media’s overlooking of the massacre’s anniversary and the violent police intervention were also protested.

Among tens of national newspapers in the country, only a few of them – including BirGün, Cumhuriyet, and Evrensel – covered the Ankara Massacre, one of the deadliest massacres in Turkey’s history.

Source: https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/10-ekim-i-anmak-ikinci-yilda-da-yasak-183655.html