Turkish security forces moved into Istanbul's Gezi Park on Saturday to evict anti-government protestors only hours after the Prime Minister issued a stern ultimatum that they must leave before Sunday, Al Jazeera reports.
"We have our Istanbul rally tomorrow. I say it clearly: Taksim Square must be evacuated, otherwise this country's security forces know how to evacuate it," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told supporters at a rally in Ankara.
Within minutes, the brutal crackdown had forced the protestors out — panicked from the heavy smog of tear gas and volleys of rubber bullets and water cannons. Police used armored vehicles to seal off the square, and then spread throughout the area, yelling over megaphones for protestors to "evacuate," according to USA Today. At least five people had been killed and thousands injured, RT reports.
As protestors scrambled, police remained behind to destroy their tents and take down their banners, AFP reports.
Panicked protesters fled into an upmarket hotel at the back of the park, several of them vomiting, as clouds of tear gas and blasts from what witnesses said were percussion bombs - designed to create confusion rather than injure - engulfed the park.
"We tried to flee and the police pursued us. It was like war," Claudia Roth, the co-chair of Germany's Greens party who had gone to Gezi Park to show her support, told Reuters.
The area has now been cleared, as the livestream of Taksim Square from RT reflects an eerie ghost town, now with only a handful of people being seen.
Although they have been forced out, some protestors were still defiant.
"We will continue our resistance in the face of any injustice and unfairness taking place in our country," the Taksim Solidarity group, seen by many as the most representative of the activists, said in a statement to Al Jazeera on Saturday.
"I won't give up," Mey Elbi, a protestor, told AFP. "We're angry, this is not over. The world has seen that together, we can stand up to Tayyip."
A 240,000 member-strong public-sector union confederation announced it would call for a national strike on Monday in response, while another union would hold a meeting to determine whether it would take similar action, according to Reuters.
The move to evict the protestors comes only days after a violent clash erupted on June 11, as hundreds of police raided the square in their first major attempt to remove protestors. The square was cleared, but protestors then came back by the thousands — enduring police firing of tear gas canisters, water cannons, and rubber bullets.
The protests began more than two weeks ago when about a dozen people began protesting the removal of trees in Gezi park near the square. The protests then morphed into general anti-government sentiment and now has the backing of Turkey's robust labor unions.
