Oh, how the tables have been turned…
On May 28, 2013, a few dozen activists headed to Gezi Park in Istanbul’s Taksim Square to peacefully protest the destruction of one of the last green spaces in the center of Istanbul. At 5 am, police invaded the park and used unnecessarily violent tactics, including tear gas and pepper spray, to remove the men, women and children from the park. This unwarranted police brutality was the catalyst to what became the largest backlash to AKP and Erdogan’s authoritative rule in ten years.
Despite being majority Muslim, Turkey has had a long standing tradition of secularism since it was founded in 1923. However, in the recent years secular freedoms and the foundation set by Ataturk, have been under attack, in what some claim to be AKP’s Islamification of Turkey and general disregard of secular Turks.
The protest, which started in defiance of Erdogan selling the last green space to his contractor friends to build another shopping mall, has now become a nationwide protest of the whole country, and discover Erdogan’s Islamist agenda. And his link to brotherhood, who are themselves linked to Al-Qaeda. AKP is wildly unpopular, with great swaths of the urban population and these people feel that they are not being represented in government, and that they are being punished by the AKP’s religious agenda.
While the dissatisfied people in cities across Turkey are taking to the streets to vent their frustrations with the government. Erdogan and his cabinet members have made it clear that any political dissent, whether peaceful or not, would be met with police brutality, arrests and insults from the government.
In an attempt to quell the rebellion, government censors forbid any Turkish media outlet from broadcasting any news related to the protests until day five. During the height of the clashes CNN Turk, a major news outlet, was broadcasting a documentary on penguins. Turkish citizens counteracted the media blackout by taking to social media sites and the internet to make their voices heard. There were some reports that facebook and twitter, the sites where a majority of protest organization took place, had been blocked or access severely restricted. Private television channel, Kanal D’s Ankara Chief Erhan Karadag was one of the many taken into custody under trumped up charges of ‘supporting the demonstrators.’
Erdogan who for years now was speaking of democracy, and give his free advises to Arab world, and support terrorists against Syrian Government, because he wants freedom to Syrian people, silly man, for the second time, cut a poor figure, the first was, when he appeared on TV, insulting Perez the Zionist president, then we discovered that he is a closest friend to Israel.
AKP Member of Parliament Sirin Unal took to his twitter feed to comment on the riots saying that, “Apparently people (in Taksim) need to be gassed.” In his speech addressing the political unrest, Erdogan said that, “social media is a plague against society.” Equating the peaceful protesters to ‘terrorists’ and that the million people in Taksim Square represented ‘marginal groups’ or ‘alcoholics’ of society.
The water tanks and riot police have been removed from Taksim, and protesters have occupied the Square once more celebrating victory of a now six day long, violent struggle with police forces. They have brought garbage bags and have organized city clean ups to help repair that damage caused by the clashes. The protest, now a thousand times the original size has returned to a peaceful state, because there are rumors that the destruction of the city center’s historical park has been cancelled. Although there is temporary stability, Erdogan has not backed down on his threats and grandiose, accusatorial language. Only time will tell if Erdogan and AKP will listen to the people or will they once again violently attack anyone who disagrees.
How can a Erdogan extol the virtues of a democratic society and peaceful protest, when he cannot provide those conditions to his own people? Turkey ranks as one of the most dangerous places for journalists and has the highest number of jailed journalists in the world. Apparently, Erdogan and AKP can’t handle the truth and are so egotistical they cannot listen to criticism. It’s time Erdogan and AKP stopped oppressing the Turkish people, stopped eroding the constitution and started embracing true democracy.
At last I say: Erdogan don’t speak again about democracy anymore, no one will believe you, All the protests in your country were peaceful, and you did what you did, so if you have terrorists killing and destroying your country, what you will do.
Butheina Alnounou