Bloody May Day (1977)

On 1 May 1977, an International Workers' Day rally organized by the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK) drew an estimated 500,000 participants to Taksim Square in Istanbul. Before many demonstrators, including the Maoist bloc, had even entered the square, gunfire broke out. Most witnesses said the shots came from the building of the water supply company (Sular İdaresi) and from the Sheraton Hotel, then the tallest building in Istanbul. Security forces subsequently entered the square with armoured vehicles, sirens, and explosives, and used pressurized water hoses on the crowd. As people attempted to flee through the Kazancı Yokuşu exit, a police vehicle blocked the route. Most of the casualties resulted from the panic caused by the police intervention rather than directly from gunfire.

Casualty figures vary across sources: official reporting on the day cited 34 dead and 126 injured; an indictment against 98 participants listed 34 victims by name; DISK's own list named 36 victims; and DISK press advisor Fahrettin Erdoğan calculated a combined toll of 42. Injury estimates range as high as 220. Autopsy reports indicated only four victims died from gunshot wounds, three deaths could have resulted from either bullets or head injuries, and 27 victims died from crush injuries; witnesses stated that victim Meral Özkol had been run over by an armoured vehicle.

More than 500 demonstrators were detained after the incident, and 98 were formally indicted. Of 17 defendants held in pre-trial detention, several were released before the first hearing on 7 July 1977, with the rest released shortly afterward. The trial concluded in acquittal on 20 October 1989, and no perpetrators were ever caught or brought to justice; the case ultimately lapsed under the statute of limitations.

Investigative claims recorded years later — attributed to prosecutor Çetin Yetkin and lawyer Rasim Öz — alleged that gendarmerie personnel detained approximately 20 snipers on the roof of the Water Supply Company building and handed them to police officers, but that these detainees never appeared in police records, and that filmed evidence and a sack of explosives handed to authorities subsequently went missing. The named police officers rejected involvement.

Suspicion focused on the Counter-Guerrilla (Turkey's branch of the Cold War-era stay-behind network) and associated right-wing groups, an allegation first raised publicly by opposition leader Bülent Ecevit on 7 May 1977. Then-Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel reportedly warned Ecevit in a confidential letter that shots might again be fired from the Sheraton Hotel. Additional allegations implicate the CIA and Turkish intelligence figures, though these remain unproven claims rather than adjudicated findings. The massacre is described as part of a broader wave of political violence in Turkey during the late 1970s.