Turkish police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber pellets on Thursday to stop May Day protesters, some armed with fire bombs, from defying Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and reaching Istanbul's central Taksim square, according to the Associated Press.
Citing security fears, authorities shut parts of the city's public transport system, erected steel barricades and deployed thousands of riot police to block access to Taksim, a traditional union rallying point and the focus of weeks of anti-government protests last summer, the AP reported.
Erdogan, who warned last week he would not let labor unions march on Taksim, has cast both last year's street protests and a corruption scandal dogging his government since December as part of a plot to undermine him, according to the AP.
While it was the unions who called for demonstrations to press workers' rights and express broad opposition to Erdogan's government, some of those who clashed more violently with police were from marginal leftist groups, the AP reported.
The Istanbul governor's office said it had received advanced information that "illegal terror organizations and their extensions" would resort to violence to stoke unrest, according to the AP. On the fringes of a massive security cordon around the square, pockets of protesters played cat and mouse with police in tear gas-shrouded side streets.
Demonstrators in surrounding neighborhoods repeatedly tried to breach police lines blocking the way to Taksim, a normally teeming shopping and tourism district which lay virtually deserted and ringed by security checkpoints, the AP reported.
Bemused tourists, their hotels lining the square, picked their way nervously through police lines, some shepherded by bell boys, their luggage in tow, according to the AP.
The Istanbul governor's office said police found eight home-made bombs and 90 people were injured, 19 of them police officers, the AP reported.
