Police disperse Soma, Berkin Elvan protesters marching to Justice Ministry

ANKARA – Doğan News Agency

Police resorted to tear gas and water cannons to prevent students from going outside ODTÜ campus. AA Photo

The police dispersed a group of demonstrators protesting against the Soma mining disaster and the 15-year-old Gezi victim Berkin Elvan’s death in Ankara on May 21.

A group of protesters gathered in the Middle Eastern Technical University (ODTÜ) campus to march to the Justice Ministry to protest both last week’s mining disaster that claimed the lives of 301 workers and the tragic death of Elvan after spending nine months in coma due to an injury caused by a tear gas canister.

Police resorted to tear gas and water cannons to prevent students from going outside of the campus. Some protesters responded by throwing fireworks and Molotov Cocktails at the police.

The police have staged repeated crackdowns on protests organized in ODTÜ since the controversial construction of a road crossing the campus that led to the destruction of hundreds of trees in one of the Turkish capital’s greenest areas.

A spontaneous protest organized last week in the wake of the Soma disaster was also put down by the police.