Baku-APA. A German official said he was “seriously concerned” about police intervention in Ä°stanbul's Taksim Square on Tuesday, calling on the Turkish government to respect and protect freedom of expression and assembly, APA reports quoting Todays Zaman.
“I call on the authorities in the Turkish government and security institutions not to use violence against their own citizens and to respect their rights,” the German government's human rights commissioner, Markus Loening, said in a statement. The statement was distributed to the Turkish media by the German Embassy in Ankara in Turkish.
While the Turkish government is “a good and close partner of the German Federal Government,” said Loening, Turkey has obligations to respect and protect human rights -- particularly freedom of assembly and expression -- as a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Turkish riot police fired tear gas and water cannons at hundreds of protesters on Tuesday as they tried to regain control of Taksim Square at the heart of anti-government demonstrations for the past two weeks.
Tensions over the protests have further undermined Turkey-EU ties, strained due to a stalemate in Turkey's bid to join the 27-nation bloc.
The European Parliament is to hold a debate on the protests and government reaction to them this week. Some members of the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament were set to have a public conference together with some members of the Taksim Platform from Turkey on the latest situation, in Strasbourg later on Tuesday. The Green politicians include Helene Flautre, the co-chair of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, and the co-presidents of the Greens/European Free Alliance group, Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
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