A right-wing attack on a left-wing anti-US protest in Istanbul killed two demonstrators and injured over 200, marking a violent flashpoint in Turkey's political polarization.
Key Facts
- Date
- 16 February 1969
- Deaths
- 2 (Ali Turgut Aytaç and Duran Erdoğan)
- Injured
- Over 200
- Location
- Taksim Square, Istanbul
- Protest target
- Visit of US Sixth Fleet to Istanbul
- March participants
- 76 youth organizations, labor unions, Workers' Party of Turkey
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Seventy-six left-wing youth organizations, backed by labor unions and the Workers' Party of Turkey, organized the 'Mustafa Kemal March Against Imperialism' to protest the docking of the United States Sixth Fleet in Istanbul. The march received official permission from the Istanbul governorate, but right-wing groups mobilized to oppose it, assembling at Taksim Square armed with sticks, stones, and knives.
On 16 February 1969, tens of thousands of left-wing demonstrators marched from Beyazıt Square through central Istanbul toward Taksim Square. Police allowed marchers into the square only in small groups, enabling right-wing counter-demonstrators to break through a thin two-row police cordon. The attackers, chanting religious and anti-communist slogans, stabbed two protesters to death and injured more than 200 others.
The event, known as Kanlı Pazar (Bloody Sunday), became a symbol of deepening political violence between left and right factions in Turkey during the late 1960s. The deaths of Ali Turgut Aytaç and Duran Erdoğan intensified tensions that would persist and escalate through the following decade of political unrest in the country.
Political Outcome
Two left-wing protesters killed and over 200 injured; the attack intensified political polarization between left and right factions in Turkey.