Police clashed with protesters for a second day outside a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, CNN’s sister network, CNN Turk, reported Wednesday.
Demonstrators threw paving stones and vandalized parked cars, according to CNN Turk. The violence came as top officials of the IMF and World Bank wrapped up their annual session and made a public call to establish a “new world order” of economic relations in the wake of the global economic crisis. During Tuesday’s protests, Turkish authorities said they arrested at least 80 demonstrators. The protesters set up make-shift barricades, briefly blocking major streets and threw Molotov cocktails. On Tuesday, one Turkish newspaper headline read: “Socialists Under Smoke.” Another paper headline announced: “While leaders are delivering speeches defending the struggle against poverty at the IMF meetings, protesters outside declared war on the IMF in the name of poverty.”
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Police break up anti-IMF protests in Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the protesters, in a speech Tuesday morning at Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University. “Protest does not mean attacking. Protest does not mean smashing windows,” he said. “By smashing windows, you take away shopkeepers weekly, monthly profit. The meetings sparked passions from the start. Last week, a protester threw his shoe at IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn during a question-and-answer session at an Istanbul university. The shoe missed the IMF chief.
