Turkish police use tear gas, injure dozens in break up of protests

[Syt]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-turkey-protests-idUSBRE94U0J920130531

Turkish police fire tear gas in worst protests in years

(Reuters) - Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at demonstrators in central Istanbul, wounding scores of people and prompting rallies in other cities in the fiercest anti-government protests in years.

Thousands of demonstrators massed on streets surrounding Istanbul's central Taksim Square, long a venue for political unrest, while protests erupted in the capital, Ankara, and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.

Broken glass and rocks were strewn across a main shopping street near Taksim. Primary school children ran crying from the clouds of tear gas, while tourists caught by surprise scurried to get back to luxury hotels lining the square.

The unrest reflects growing disquiet at the authoritarianism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Riot police clashed with tens of thousands of May Day protesters in Istanbul this month. There have also been protests against the government's stance on the conflict in neighboring Syria, a tightening of restrictions on alcohol sales and warnings against public displays of affection.

"We do not have a government, we have Tayyip Erdogan. ... Even AK Party supporters are saying they have lost their mind, they are not listening to us," said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Bosphorus University, who attended the protest.

"This is the beginning of a summer of discontent."

The protest at Taksim's Gezi Park started late on Monday after trees were torn up under a government redevelopment plan, but has widened into a broader demonstration against Erdogan's administration. Friday's violence erupted after a dawn police raid on demonstrators who had been camped out for days.

"This isn't just about trees anymore, it's about all of the pressure we're under from this government. We're fed up, we don't like the direction the country is headed in," said 18-year-old student Mert Burge, who came to support the protesters after reading on Twitter about the police use of tear gas.

"We will stay here tonight and sleep on the street if we have to," he said.

Thousands chanting for the government to resign gathered at a park in the center of Ankara, where police earlier fired tear gas to disperse several dozen opposition supporters trying to reach the AKP headquarters. Protesters also rallied at two locations in Izmir, according to pictures on social media.

EXCESSIVE FORCE

A Turkish woman of Palestinian origin was in a critical condition after being hit by a police gas canister, hospital sources said. The 34-year-old, who doctors had earlier identified as Egyptian, was undergoing an operation after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

A total of 12 people, including a pro-Kurdish MP and a Reuters photographer, suffered trauma injuries and hundreds suffered respiratory problems due to tear gas, doctors said.

Some people were injured when a wall they were climbing collapsed as they tried to flee clouds of tear gas.

Amnesty International said it was concerned by "the use of excessive force" by the police against what had started out as a peaceful protest. Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the European parliament rapporteur on Turkey, also voiced concern.

In Washington, the State Department said it was concerned with the number of injuries and was gathering its own information on the incident.

"We believe that Turkey's long-term stability, security and prosperity is best guaranteed by upholding the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association, which is what it seems these individuals were doing," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler promised that allegations that police had used disproportionate force would be investigated.

Erdogan has overseen a transformation in Turkey during his decade in power, turning its economy from crisis-prone into Europe's fastest-growing. Per-capita income has tripled in nominal terms since his party rose to power.

He remains by far Turkey's most popular politician, and is widely viewed as its most powerful leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the modern secular republic on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago.

DEFIANCE

But Erdogan brooks little dissent. Hundreds of military officers have been jailed for plotting a coup against him in recent years. Academics, journalists, politicians and others face trial on similar charges.

He has made no secret of his ambition to run for the presidency in elections next year when his term as prime minister ends, increasing opposition dismay.

"These people will not bow down to you" read one banner at the Gezi Park protest, alongside a cartoon of Erdogan wearing an Ottoman emperor's turban.

Postings on social media including Twitter, where "Occupy Gezi" - a reference to protests in New York and London last year - was a top-trending hashtag, and Facebook said similar demonstrations were planned for the next few days in other Turkish cities including Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Bursa.

"Kiss protests," in which demonstrators are urged to lock lips, had already been planned for Istanbul and Ankara this weekend after subway officials were reported to have admonished a couple for kissing in public a week ago.

Erdogan is pushing ahead with a slew of multibillion-dollar projects he sees as embodying Turkey's emergence as a major power. They include a shipping canal, a giant mosque and a third Istanbul airport billed to be one of the world's biggest.

Speaking a few miles (km) from Gezi Park at the launch on Wednesday of construction of a third bridge linking Istanbul's European and Asian shores, Erdogan vowed to pursue plans to redevelop Taksim Square.

Architects, leftist parties, academics, city planners and others have long opposed the plans, saying they lacked consultation with civic groups and would remove one of central Istanbul's few green spaces.

[Syt]

Also, a Deutsche Welle report from this week says that there's a news ban regarding bombings in the border city of Reyhanli - media were forbidden to record images or sounds in the area, with non-state media locked out from the area (which is not much of a surprise, considering that journalists can go to jail if their articles seem to support terrorists/incite treason).

[Syt]

CNN International and CNN Turk have different ways of covering the events.

[The Brain]

EXCESSIVE FOOD

[Martinus]

Who were those idiots who thought Erdogan is a good thing for Turkey again? Come forward and admit you were wrong.

[Syt]

NYT has a longer analysis of the general situation in Turkey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/police-attack-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=world

Peaceful Protest Over Istanbul Park Turns Violent as Police Crack Down

ISTANBUL — Police officers attacked a group of peaceful demonstrators on Friday in Istanbul's Taksim Square with water cannons and tear gas, sending scores of people, protesters and tourists alike, scurrying into shops and luxury hotels and turning the center of this city into a battle zone at the height of tourist season.

The police action was the latest violent crackdown by the government against a growing protest movement challenging plans to replace a park in Taksim Square, Istanbul's equivalent of Cairo's Tahrir Square, with a replica Ottoman-era army barracks that would house a shopping mall.

But while the removal of the park, which is filled with sycamore trees and is the last significant green space in the center of Istanbul, set off the protests at the beginning of the week, the gatherings have broadened into a wider expression of anger against the heavy-handed tactics and urban development plans of the government and its leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His party, now in power a decade, is increasingly viewed by many Turks as becoming authoritarian.

Mr. Erdogan still has great support among Turkey's religious masses, but secular critics cite his government's sweeping prosecution and intimidation of journalists as evidence of its intolerance of dissent.

Much of the anger also centers on the struggle over Istanbul's public spaces. Mr. Erdogan's government has proceeded with disputed urban development plans with little public input, while his police forces have increasingly used tear gas against peaceful protesters, resulting in scores of injuries, including the hospitalization on Friday of a Kurdish lawmaker, who had become a vocal participant in the protests, after he was hit by a tear gas canister.

The protest movement comes amid continued public anger at Turkey's policy of supporting the rebels in Syria, which many Turks feel has led to a violent spillover inside Turkey, including recent car bombings in the southern city of Reyhanli, which killed dozens of people. The rising public disenchantment represents a significant political challenge to Mr. Erdogan, who is planning to run for the presidency next year and has been trying to alter the Constitution to create a more powerful presidential system.

In the early afternoon Friday, as protesters gathered and began shouting antigovernment chants, police officers in riot gear began surrounding the group, positioning vehicles that resembled tanks at the edge of the square around the protesters, who were mostly sitting.

"Taksim is ours; we are not giving it to the A.K.P.!" they chanted, referring to Mr. Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P.

As they chanted, police officers casually put on their gas masks and the operators of the tanklike vehicles aimed their big guns, which fire a mixture of water and tear gas, at the group. Then chaos erupted. Protesters and onlookers, some of them tourists, ran down side streets where shopkeepers offered sliced lemons to soothe the burning sensation of the gas, and pharmacists doled out ointments for skin burns.

"The pigs, the pigs," said Esra Yurtnac, who was crying as she sought refuge in a bakery after being gassed. "All they know is how to use gas."

She added, "They think they can silence us with force, but they won't."

Hours after the clashes with protesters, an Istanbul court on Friday ruled in favor of a petition by a local advocacy group and halted the project until parties submitted their legal arguments to court, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported. The interior minister also pledged on Friday that claims of excessive force would be investigated.

The chaos followed a dawn raid on an Occupy Wall Street-style encampment in Gezi Park, near Taksim, in which the police also used tear gas to drive away protesters and later barricaded the park. In an earlier raid on the camp, on Thursday, the police set fire to some tents. The brief occupation of the park, which began after bulldozers had started to take down trees, had taken on a festival-like atmosphere, with yoga, barbecues and musical performances, while those gathered chanted, "Taksim is ours! Istanbul is ours!"

The people adorned the camp with banners expressing the rising anger at the reshaping of Istanbul's urban spaces by the government. One read, "Don't touch our neighborhood, our squares, our trees, our water, our soil, our homes, our villages, our cities and our parks."

Another referred to Mr. Erdogan and the growing number of shopping malls being built around the city. "Let all shopping malls crumble and let Tayyip get crushed by their rubble," the banner read.

In building new mosques and emphasizing Turkey's Islamic past over its Byzantine and Roman legacies, Mr. Erdogan has been referred to as a latter-day Ottoman sultan, with little regard for seeking public input on the projects. On Wednesday, the government held a groundbreaking ceremony for a third bridge over the Bosporus that is being named for an Ottoman sultan.

"It's all about superiority, and ruling over the people like sultans," said one of the protesters, Seckin Barbaros, 26, a former journalist who is now unemployed. "When were we asked what we wanted? We have three times the amount of mosques as we do schools. Yet they are building new mosques. There are eight shopping malls in the vicinity of Taksim, yet they want to build another."

In a speech earlier in the week, Mr. Erdogan dismissed the protesters and said the destruction of park would go ahead, "no matter what they do."

The anger in the streets is also a rebuke to the economic policies of the government, which have relied heavily on construction and new housing in Istanbul to power economic growth. Turkey has had a resilient economy that emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis, eclipsing the performance of Europe and many other nations. But some analysts worry the government's focus on construction projects could lead to a bubble much like the one in the United States that led to the economic collapse of 2008.

Ms. Barbaros said, "What about the day when all these shopping malls will be empty like in Greece and then they will wish they never constructed them."

She added: "Where are the opera houses? The theaters? The culture and youth centers? What about those? They only choose what will bring them the most profit without considering what we need."

Another demonstrator, Seyfettin Sabaz, who is training to be a dentist, said: "Many of the Turkish public think that we are here as environmentalists to save our sycamore trees. But that's not it. We are here to stand up against those that are trying to make a profit from our land."

Around Taksim Square, the site of several other tear gas attacks on protesters this year, including one on May Day demonstrators, the chaos is taking on a sense of the familiar to shopkeepers who are becoming accustomed to offering shelter and aid to tear gas victims.

"I own a decorations shop, but for the past year it has felt like I run a shelter for gas raid victims," said Ali Yildrim, who has lived in Istanbul for 35 years. "Soon I'll be keeping lemons and medicine behind my counter."

[Syt]

To those in the know - I suppose those are tear gas canisters on th ground?

[Syt]

Well, that's settled, then.

BBC:

The US has expressed concern over Turkey's handling of the protests and Amnesty International condemned the police's tactics.

In his speech, Mr Erdogan criticised the "preaching" of foreign governments, saying they "should first look at their own countries".

[Darth Wagtaros]

No one has made a photochop of that fat cop what gassed the Occupy people gassing Turks?

[Syt]

No one has made a photochop of that fat cop what gassed the Occupy people gassing Turks?

This would be a good starting point.

[The Brain]

Timmay is ay... turnip?

[CountDeMoney]

This would be a good starting point.

Looks like a weedkiller gun.

[Grinning_Colossus]

I've always resented the success of those smug and reactionary AKP shits. Hopefully the military will save the day.

[barkdreg]

http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/

Seems people have been killed. I wonder if the army will back the protests. Turkey into anarchy would be a very bad thing.

[Razgovory]

Who were those idiots who thought Erdogan is a good thing for Turkey again? Come forward and admit you were wrong.

Meanwhile in the civilized lands of Europe.