Turkey protester beaten by "Grey Wolves" and police

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Turkey protester beaten by ``Grey Wolves,'' police
01:47 p.m May 01, 1998 Eastern

ISTANBUL, May 1 (Reuters) - Turkish right-wing militants and riot
police badly beat a leftist protester on Friday at the headquarters of
a far-right political party after mob violence at a May Day rally.

Reuters Television filmed ``Grey Wolf'' rightists hanging the man out
of the first-floor window of the Nationalist Action Party building as
police and other members of a 100-strong crowd of rightists below beat
him.

The man was dragged screaming back into the building. Rightists then
forced reporters and camera crews away from the scene in Istanbul's
Okmeydani district. They later seized a Reuters journalist's notebook.

A television channel said the Grey Wolf rightists, named after a
legendary she-wolf from Turkic Central Asia, kept on kicking and
beating the protester inside the building, injuring him severely.
Police later took him hospital for treatment, it said.

The RTV videotape showed a young rightist howling in triumph and
giving the two-fingered Grey Wolf sign after the attack. The rightists
also roughed up three young women who appeared to be passers-by.

State-run Anatolian news agency said one of its correspondents was
taken to hospital with slight injuries after he and other journalists
were beaten in a side street during the incident.

An official at a police station 150 metres (160 yards) from the
building told Reuters by telephone they were not aware of any trouble.


Human rights groups say extreme rightists have infiltrated the police
force, particularly in the mainly Kurdish southeast where police teams
often sport Grey Wolf insignia and stickers on their weapons.

Riot police wielding batons and firing water cannon earlier dispersed
stone-throwing leftist militants at a large May Day rally nearby.

Witnesses said dozens of demonstrators were injured, most of them
beaten by police, and more than 100 detained.

Turkey's riot police, called ``Robocops'' because of their plastic
body armour, are often accused of heavy handedness at public events.

The European Union cited concern over Turkey's human rights record
among its reasons for putting the country's membership bid in cold
storage at the end of last year.

May Day in Turkey has a legacy of violence, with police and militant
groups frequently engaging in pitched battles.

Three demonstrators were killed in heavy fighting between leftist
rioters and police in 1996. Thirty-seven people died after suspected
right-wing gunmen opened fire on a May Day rally in Istanbul in 1977.

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