Storage workers of the Turkish retail company Migros Group, who have been in protest for three months against the bad working conditions, unpaid leave and dismissals, were beaten, arrested and tortured during an action in front of the boss Tuncay Özilhan's villa in Beykoz, Istanbul. On the 91st day of the protest, the workers moved in front of the boss' house, as he had refused all requests to communicate, and wanted to make a public statement.

During the protest since the beginning of the year, workers who resisted being sent on unpaid leave were summarily dismissed. In many companies in Turkey, unpaid leave has been imposed en masse since the beginning of the crisis, and organised protest against it has usually resulted in direct dismissal. The Migros workers' protest and denunciation of police aggression in front of the boss's villa was specifically directed at the parent company Anadolu Grubu, one of the big pillars of bureaucratic capitalism in Turkey.

Even the arrival and harassment by the police could not stop the protest on the ground for the time being: Workers set up tents in front of the villa over the past few days, to what the cops also responded with harsh interventions.

Mass struggles in Istanbul are also developing in the Eyüpsultan district against "district upgrading". With the declaration of the district as a "risky area", a project to renew 191 households, i.e. displacing the local people, was launched, in the course of which electricity, gas and water are to be cut off now once again. When the officials arrived for this purpose, the protest developed, which they dispersed with pepper spray, arresting some residents in the process.

 

Eyüpsultan Protest Stadtteilaufwertung