Human-chain protest held against third bridge in Istanbul

A group of people protested Sunday a planned third bridge over the Bosphorus Strait that connects Istanbul’s European and Asian sides, daily Cumhuriyet reported Monday. Members of the Platform for Life Instead of a Third Bridge formed a one-kilometer-long human chain to protest plans to build a new bridge over the waterway. The group held hands and walked in a line on Büyükdere Street near the Tarabya neighborhood of Istanbul’s Sarıyer district to protest the project, which they say will destroy forests in the northern part of the city. Posters carried by platform members read: “No Forest, No Water,” “Third Bridge Means Destruction,” “Not Bridge, But Human Life” and “Capital, Go Away; Istanbul is Ours.” Members of the Chamber of Forest Engineers, the Chamber of Construction Engineers and the Chamber of City Planners were among the protesters. Turkey’s general director of highways, Cahit Turan, had said during the first week of February that Beykoz-Tarabya and Sarıyer-Yuşa Hill were the possible routes for the third bridge connecting the city’s two sides. Experts say the use of these routes would damage the area’s forests since the highways connected to the third bridge would pass through the city’s wooded areas, according to a 10-page report published by Istanbul University’s Forest Faculty.

Source : Daily News and Economic Review, Turkish Press Scan, 29.03.2010 - from Cumhuriyet (URL : http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=0329083154616-2010-03-29)