Solidarity with the militants in Turkey
Stop the repression and state terror against the labor movement!
39 activists, leading members of labor unions and the revolutionary left (including 5 comrades from the Trotskyist SEP) were arrested following police raids on their homes due to their participation in May Day demonstrations.
This is the third wave of police operations. It was preceded by the arrest of 50 left militants on May 2, of whom 48 are still held.
The wave of repression followed the direct challenge from the revolutionary left of the government ban on the May Day gathering at Taksim Square in Istanbul, which had been called by the labor unions.
Despite strict police measures and the closure of urban transportation, thousands of workers and young people responded to the call for the gathering. Unfortunately, once again, they were betrayed by union bureaucracy, which abandoned the gathering out of fear of repression. This turned the mobilization into merely symbolic, rather than class-oriented, leaving workers and ordinary union members exposed. Left-wing parties and activists did not accept this humiliating stance, resulting in clashes with the police and arrests.
The worsening economic situation in Turkey have escalated the cost of living for the working class, creating significant dissatisfaction and fueling a series of struggles by the working class and the youth.
In response to this, and also to the reactionary plans of the Turkish bourgeoisie in the wider region, an authoritarian, militaristic state of emergency is being built against the working class and its organizations, which suppresses the struggles and terrorizes the workers.
In Greece and Turkey, workers face common problems. Mitsotakis and Erdogan, in relation to the working class and its struggles, are two different faces of the same authoritarian, anti-labour, and nationalist coin.
With our common class struggles and internationalist solidarity, let’s stop them.
– Immediate release of the militants arrested for protesting on the May Day rally in Turkey!
Solidarity is our weapon – War against the capitalists war!
In Greece and Turkey, common class struggles against poverty, repression, armaments, nationalism and war.
Organisation of Comunists Internationalists of Greece (O.K.D.E.)