ISTANBUL â€" Late on Saturday night, the Turkish police were said to have confiscated the grand piano and vehicle of Davide Martello, the German pianist who had been playing on and off here in Gezi Park, in Taksim Square, since Wednesday evening. The police were carrying out orders of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to clear protesters from the park for a rally planned in the park for Sunday.
“I parked my car about 200 meters away from the monument where I played late Thursday, started rolling my piano down to the street and suddenly got caught in a thick cloud of tear gas. I couldn’t believe it,†Mr. Martello said in a phone interview early Sunday.
Mr. Martello said he fled in panic and returned when the cloud of tear gas had cleared. “There was no one, so I thought I would just play on the side of the street, but then police appeared,†he said. They asked him to clear his belongings from his trailer and leave the area, which he did. He left his piano and trailer behind. He said Turkish friends had offered help to track down his trailer and the piano, which took him two years to build.
“I just need my piano back before I decide whether I’ll stay here longer,†he said.
