Around 1:30pm local time, police fired tear gas bombs and water cannons at demonstrators who were to make statement against the planned construction of a shopping mall at the location of a public park in downtown Istanbul.
Peace and Democracy Party deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder has been hit on the shoulder by a gas bomb shell and transferred to a hospital with a stretcher.
Republican People’s Party deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu has been transferred from Taksim İlkyardım Hospital to German Hospital for angiogram.
Gürsel Tekin arrived to the hospital to visit Ahmet Şık, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Sezgin Tanrıkulu. He stated that a bomb shell deliberately aimed at Tanrıkulu hit her in the mouth.
Lokma Almani, a woman from Egypt, has been hit in the head by gas bomb shell and hospitalized for brain surgery.
Hospitals constantly receive new admissions, though patients are not allowed to have any visitors in the emergency room to “avoid contamination of press” - a situation that reportedly created tensions between hospital staff and patient relatives.
Wounded police officer and Sinan Çetin protested
A turmoil broke out as a wounded police officer has been admitted to the hospital. Some patient relatives threw stones at a nearby police car.
Sinan Çetin, a well-known director who also acted in one of Turkey’s biggest construction firms commercials, was protested with slogans “Go to Ağaoğlu!” during his visit to Önder.
Istanbul Chamber of Medicines stated that the approximate number of injured people due to the protests was 100.
In Şişli Children Hospital, the number of admissions due to police violence was said to be 15. (ÇT/BM)
