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Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

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  • Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

    Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at protesters occupying a park in central Istanbul, wounding scores including tourists in the harshest crackdown so far on days of anti-government unrest.

    The protest at Gezi Park started late on Monday after developers tore up trees but has widened into a broader demonstration against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

    Friday's violence erupted after a dawn police raid on demonstrators who had camped for days in the park in anger at plans to build a shopping mall. Clouds of tear gas rose around the area in Taksim Square, long a venue for political protest.

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

    "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."

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

    "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.

    An Egyptian tourist was in a critical condition after being hit by a police gas canister, Istanbul Medical Chamber board member Huseyin Demirduzen told Reuters. The 34-year-old woman was undergoing an operation after suffering a brain haemorrhage.

    A total of 12 people, including a pro-Kurdish MP and a Reuters photographer, suffered trauma injuries and hundreds suffered respiratory problems due to the effects of tear gas during the clashes, Demirduzen 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 what it described as "the use of excessive force" by the police against what had started out as a peaceful protest.

    Interior Minister Muammer Guler promised that claims 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.

    The unrest has not matched the mass demonstrations seen in some Arab or European countries in recent years, but it reflects growing opposition concern about Erdogan's authoritarianism.

    DEFIANCE

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

    Erdogan has made no secret of his ambition to run for the presidency in elections next year when his term as prime minister ends, exacerbating 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 multi-billion dollar projects which he sees as embodying Turkey's emergence as a major power. They include a shipping canal designed to rival Panama or Suez, a giant mosque and a third Istanbul airport billed to be one of the world's biggest.

    Speaking just a few miles 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 political 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.


  • #2
    Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

    Pictures collected from around the internet about the #direngeziparki / #occupygezi protests that...

    here you can find photos and follow the social media

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

      Originally posted by KarotheGreat View Post
      http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/
      here you can find photos and follow the social media
      Erdogan clearly wants to be el presidente for life and these Anarchists are the only Turks who seem to have a problem with this idea.

      Last edited by retro; 06-01-2013, 01:49 PM.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

        TURKEY STAKES CLAIM IN AMERICA WITH $100 MILLION MEGA-MOSQUE

        The building of this center takes Turkey's "outreach" in America out
        of the realm of the subtle.

        By Ryan Mauro Tue, May 21, 2013

        A drawing of Turkey's $100 million mega-mosque complex being built
        in Maryland.

        The government of Turkey is building a 15-acre, $100 million
        mega-mosque in Lanham, Maryland. Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan
        visited the site on May 15 as part of his official visit to the U.S..

        The state of Maryland was officially represented at the event by its
        Secretary of State John McDonough.

        The event was also attended by the leaders of two U.S. Muslim
        Brotherhood entities.

        The mega-mosque is called the Turkish American Culture and Civilization
        Center and, according to the Muslim Link, it "will likely become the
        largest and most striking examples of Islamic architecture in the
        western hemisphere" when it is finished in 2014.

        The Muslim Link explicitly says it is "a project of the government
        of Turkey."

        On May 15, Prime Minister Erdogan spoke to hundreds of people at the
        construction site and said he'd come back for the opening ceremony
        next year. He warned the audience that there are groups promoting
        "Islamophobia," branding potential critics as paranoid bigots. Erdogan
        recently said that "Islamophobia" and Zionism are equivalent to
        fascism and anti-Semitism, saying they are a "crime against humanity."

        On this trip to the U.S., Erdogan brought the father of one of the
        Islamists killed while on a Turkish flotilla which was trying to break
        Israel's weapons blockade on Gaza. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which
        is a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

        Erdogan reportedly wanted to him to meet President Obama. (In the end,
        the father met with Secretary of State John Kerry.)

        The leaders of two U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities in attendance
        included Naeem Baig, is the president of the Islamic Circle of North
        America (ICNA). A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo lists ICNA as one
        of "our organizations and the organizations of our friends." The memo
        says its "work in America is "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating
        and destroying the Western civilization from within." The memo even
        refers to meetings with ICNA where there was talk about a merger.

        ICNA is also linked to the Pakistani Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami
        and its conferences feature radical speakers. A former ICNA president
        was recently indicted for horrific war crimes committed during
        Bangladesh's 1971 succession from Pakistan - the torture and murder
        or 18 political opponents.

        The second official from a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity that attended
        the event was Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of
        North America (ISNA). ISNA and several of its components are listed
        as U.S. Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the same 1991 Brotherhood memo.

        ISNA was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation
        case, dubbed the largest Islamic terror-funding trial in the history
        of the U.S. Federal prosecutors in the case also listed ISNA as a
        U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity.

        The Turkish government has been quietly spreading its influence in the
        U.S., but Erdogan's public invovlement in the building of this center
        takes Turkey's "outreach" in America out of the realm of the subtle.

        The Clarion Project recently reported on the growing ties between the
        Turkish government and Native American tribes. With Congress' help,
        thousands of Turkish contractors and their families may be flooding
        into America's heartland and settling in semi-autonomous zones of
        the Native Americans, well out of the reach of American authorities.

        The Clarion Project also reported on the Turkish Fethullah Gulen
        school network in America, which is currently under FBI investigation.

        The network is the largest charter school network in America. It
        is the same network that has been a critical component in Turkey's
        on-going transformation from a secular democracy into an Islamic state.

        Erdogan and his Islamist government calls Hamas a "resistance" group,
        despite the fact that Hamas specifically targets Israeli civilians
        with suicide bombings and rocket attacks. Not surprisingly, Hamas
        leader Khaled Mashaal is a big admirer of Erdogan.

        Since taking office in 2003, Erdogan has been implementing his
        Islamist agenda, slowly but steadily changing Turkey from a secular
        democracy to an Islamist state: College admissions have been changed
        to favor religious students, the military has been gutted of its
        secular generals (with one in five generals currently in prison on
        dubious charges) and women have been routed out of top government
        jobs. Honor killings in Turkey increased 1,400 percent between 2002 and
        2009. Persecution of artists and journalists has become commonplace
        as opponents are charged with "crimes" like "denigrating Islam" and
        "denigrading the state."

        According to the Muslim Link, the new center will have five buildings,
        including a mosque "constructed using sixteenth century Ottoman
        architecture that can hold 750 worshipers."

        The Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center will be the
        largest Islamic site in the Western Hemisphere. The fact that it is
        being built by the government of Turkey represents the next step in
        Erdogan's desire to increase the Islamist influence in America.

        Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org's National Security Analyst,
        a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on
        Fox News.
        Hayastan or Bust.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

          Originally posted by Haykakan View Post
          TURKEY STAKES CLAIM IN AMERICA WITH $100 MILLION MEGA-MOSQUE

          The building of this center takes Turkey's "outreach" in America out
          of the realm of the subtle.

          By Ryan Mauro Tue, May 21, 2013
          If you are going to cut-and-paste Zionist propaganda into the forum, you should cite the source of it (Clarionproject).

          I dont know which is worse - the Islamist propaganda or this sort of corrupt and corrupting Zionist/Neocon propaganda. They are both equivalent in the sense that they both need each other to survive, but I think the sort of Zionist/Neocon stuff that you have just posted is more dangerous because it infiltrates and corrupts people's genuine concerns, hijacking them for Zionist aims.



          Clarion was founded in 2006 by Raphael Shore, a conservative Israeli rabbi. Clarion’s advisory board has included a number of neoconservatives and other militarist policy advocates, including Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; Ilan Sharon of Minnesotans against Terrorism; Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and narrator of the Clarion Fund’s Third Jihad documentary; Clare Lopez, executive director of the Iran Policy Committee; Harold Rhode, a former staffer under Douglas Feith in the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon who serves as an adviser to the Gatestone Institute; and Sarah Stern, president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET),which has assisted in the distribution of Clarionfilms.[30]

          Some critics have called Clarion Project a tool of Israel’s rightist Likud Party because of its close association with many Likud figures and its espousal of views in line with the Israeli right wing. The group's implicit support for the U.S. Republican Party have exacerbated this criticism.
          Last edited by bell-the-cat; 06-02-2013, 08:59 AM.
          Plenipotentiary meow!

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

            Turkey’s Prime Minister today rejected claims from protesters, who have taken to the streets across the country over the past two days, that he is an authoritarian leader, as thousands of people marched and reoccupied the centre of Istanbul.

            Protesters returned to Istanbul’s Taksim Square yesterday, the site where a small protest over plans to redevelop a park spiralled into violent confrontations on Friday when police moved to evict the demonstrators.

            The heavy-handed tactics of authorities sparked more than 90 demonstrations around the country on Friday and Saturday, officials said. More than 1,000 people have been injured in Istanbul and several hundred more in Ankara, according to medical staff.

            In Taksim Square yesterday afternoon, people were chanting slogans against Mr Erdogan and calling for him to resign. Undeterred, Mr Erdogan used a television interview to rebuke the demonstrators, who he dismissed as “a few looters”.

            “[They say] Tayyip Erdogan is a dictator. If they call one who serves the people a dictator, I cannot say anything,” said the Prime Minister during a televised speech. Erdogan insisted the project to revamp Gezi Park would go on despite the protests. “We will build a mosque in Taksim and we do not need the permission of the CHP [Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party in Parliament] or of a few bums to do it.”

            People have been protesting what they describe as the “authoritarian” attitude of the government and the heavy-handed way in which the police dealt with a peaceful sit-in in Gezi Park, next to Taksim. Mr Erdogan’s government wants to redevelop the park to build a shopping centre. The confrontation between mostly peaceful protesters and the riot police became almost a pitched battle late on Friday and went on until late on Saturday, when the police finally withdrew from Taksim.

            More than 1,000 people were detained, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and more than 100 wounded, according to medical staff, even though many protesters put this figure much higher.

            Anger was still palpable on the streets of Istanbul yesterday, as many questioned whether the unrest felt by many across the country would translate into an anti-government movement.

            “People were afraid of being beaten and of being gassed, but we have shown that we are not anymore,” said Halil Sertbulut, a 37-year-old PhD candidate in political science, speaking in Taksim Square. “Finally the people of Turkey have become politically active”, he added.

            “[Erdogan] is behaving like a dictator, we want him to give up his decisions and to leave the government,” said Zuhal Unsal, a 28-year-old nurse, while her group of friends nodded in approval. Another protester, Nedim Sarfati, a 22-year-old waiter, threatened “war in the streets” unless the Prime Minister resigned. “We need to show him our anger because he doesn’t know,” he said.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

              Thousands of protesters have controlled Istanbul's main square once more after two days of violent clashes with rampaging riot police, as Turkey's prime minister vowed to press on with the controversial redevelopment that provoked the clashes.

              Calling the protesters an "extremist fringe", Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the opposition Republican People's party for provoking the protests.

              "We think that the main opposition party, which is making resistance calls on every street, is provoking these protests," Erdogan said on Turkish television, as an estimated 10,000 demonstrators again streamed into the area waving flags and calling on the government to resign.

              "There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."

              What started last Monday as a relatively small, peaceful protest to save an inner city park from having to make way for a kitschy Ottoman-style shopping centre, rapidly snowballed into the largest and most violent anti-government protests that Turkey has seen in years.

              Hundreds were injured, some seriously, by the heavy-handed police response and excessive use of teargas. Riot police withdrew from the city on Saturday evening, handing a victory to the demonstrators.

              The protests had spread across Turkey to half of its 81 provinces, the interior ministry, Muammer Guler, said. Guler said that some 1,750 people had been detained since Tuesday, but most had since been released, while damage costs have not yet been announced. The Turkish Doctors' Association said the demonstrations had left 1,000 people injured in Istanbul and 700 in the capital, Ankara.

              "Erdogan does not listen to anyone any more," said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Istanbul's Bosphorus University. "Not even to members of his own party. But after the protests this weekend, he will have to accept that he is the prime minister of a democratic country, and that he cannot rule it on his own."

              The dramatic events also exposed the complicity and almost complete government control of mainstream Turkish media, which has largely failed to report the protests.

              "The Turkish media have embarrassed themselves," Caliskan said. "While the whole world was broadcasting from Taksim Square, Turkish television stations were showing cooking shows. It is now very clear that we do not have press freedom in Turkey."

              Human rights groups have repeatedly expressed their concerns about the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey, and Erdogan routinely criticises media outlets and journalists who do not agree with his views and those of his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).

              'Social media is the worst menace to society,' says Recep Erdogan after thousands take control of Istanbul's main square

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters



                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

                  Turkey Deputy PM apologises to Gezi Park protesters

                  Turkey's Deputy PM Bulent Arinc has apologised to protesters injured in demonstrations opposing the demolition of an Istanbul park.

                  The original protests over the redevelopment of Gezi Park were "just and legitimate", he said, offering to meet the organisers.

                  He called for the protests to end, saying they had been taken over by "terrorist elements".

                  The protests have escalated into five days of unrest in cities across Turkey.

                  "The use of excessive force shown against the people who initially started this protest with the motive of protecting the environment was wrong. And it was unfair. So I apologise to those citizens," Mr Arinc said at a news conference in Ankara.

                  However, he added: "I do not think we need to apologise to those who create destruction of public property in the streets and who try to prevent the freedom of the people in the streets."
                  ...
                  Turkey's Deputy PM Bulent Arinc apologises to protesters injured in initial protests opposing the demolition of an Istanbul park.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

                    investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill about Kosovo, Iraq sanctions and interventionism. )



                    Turkish Police Continue Protest Crackdown



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                    Police in Turkey are continuing a crackdown on mass anti-government protests. On Wednesday, police fired tear gas and water cannons at a large crowd rallying in the capital Ankara. At least 3,300 people have been arrested in five days of protests. One Turkish activist said the protesters are undeterred.


                    Ömer Madra: "Today we have the third person who was killed and the more than 2,000 people who got injured, wounded and so on. But the number of attendees, the number of people who are taking part in this huge thing doesn’t get less at all. Nobody is a
                    Hayastan or Bust.

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