Professional organizations to meet in İstanbul’s Maltepe Square on May Day

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Ahead of May the 1st Labor Day, the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK), Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK), Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, Turkish Medical Association (TTB) and Turkish Dentists Union (TDB) kicked off their May 1 activities in İstanbul's Beşiktaş yesterday (April 13).

With the motto "We will change it together", the professional organizations have announced that this year's May Day rally in İstanbul will be held in the Maltepe Square on the Anatolian side on May 1 at 1 pm.

Especially since the 1 May 1977 massacre, Taksim Square has been actually considered the "May Day Square" by the professional organizations, especially by the DİSK. However, the square has not been in the list of "the permitted sites of demonstrations" of the governor's office. And every attempted gathering there is faced with local authorities' bans.

'People long for jobs, bread and justice'

Before the leaflets were distributed by the organizations' representatives, the joint May Day declaration was read out. Reading the declaration, DİSK Chair Arzu Çerkezoğlu briefly stated the following:

"Amid the economic crisis, unemployment, price hikes and pandemic, it is becoming increasingly difficult to survive in our country, let alone leading a humane life. This system does not protect the job, daily bread, livelihood or health of workers; on the contrary, it threatens it.

"The wheels of this system continuously crush us, the ones who produce all the values and beauties of the world. The wheels of this system have been designed to make the rich richer, to fill the safes of banks and to feed companies with tenders. The wheels of this system turn to create cheap labor to exploit, nature to plunder and cities to prey on.

"While people are struggling against unemployment, hunger, poverty, debt and outbreak, the AKP government is channeling all resources of the country to a handful of bosses and privileged classes.

"Just as they are hungry for jobs, daily bread and a humane life, people are also hungry for democracy, justice and law. This system violates the rights and law of citizens and aggravates injustice. Everyone who seeks rights and tells the truth is faced with the unlawful despotism of this system. In order to sustain this system, the last remnants of democracy are eliminated. They even lay hands on our right to elect and to be elected.

"This system survives by breaking millions of people it has aggrieved into pieces. Incited by this system, sexism, racism and anti-immigrant opinions, sectarianism and war policies threaten the future of our country and people. This system cannot go on like this. Condemning people to poverty, hunger, indebtedness and precarity, this system is a burden on Turkey's back.

"The ones who have been governing the country for the past 20 yeas and those who have centered all powers in a single person cannot evade responsibility. 'Enough is enough' we say to a mentality of governance that attributes the open wounds of the country to everyone and everything, except for itself. As workers, laborers, women, young people and all of the exploited, impoverished and oppressed, we have the strength to build a country where 84 million lead a humane life.

"We call on everyone who is one the side of labor, peace, democracy, equality and freedom to meet in May 1 squares." (AÖ/SD)