The Turkish Government backed down yesterday over incendiary plans to redevelop a park in central Istanbul, just as the authorities took steps to track down doctors who had treated protesters and to close media outlets that broadcast images of demonstrations last week.

The Health Ministry had demanded a list of the names of all doctors who treated demonstrators from the Turkish Medical Association (TBB), the physicians’ association said yesterday.

“We were notified that an investigation has been launched into the improvised clinics that treated the protesters,” said Osman Öztürk, of the TBB. The association was told to “immediately” give up the names of the medical workers and their patients, but it said that it had vowed not to co-operate.

The TBB estimates that 7,500 people