“Huseyin Avni Mutlu, the governor of Istanbul, said in a Twitter message that the police would remove banners and posters. He said the activists who have been occupying Gezi Park for more than two weeks would not be affected. “Gezi Park and Taksim will never be touched,” he said. “This morning you are in the safe hands of your police [...] → Read the full article…
“The number of lawyers arrested at the Çağlayan court appears to be rising with each report. Hurriyet says more than 50 lawyers were detained, citing the Ankara Bar Association. It quotes a statement from the association as saying: “The [detention] of the lawyers at the courthouse by force brings [into] question what kind of ‘democratic regime’ we are living in.”” [...] → Read the full article…
Hundreds of police clad in riot gear pushed easily past barricades in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square early on Tuesday, and many of the protesters who had occupied the square for more than a week were pushed into a nearby park. Police briefly fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, prompting many of the protesters to flee the square into Gezi [...] → Read the full article…
Leader is used to having things his own way but, civil society movement can no longer be suppressed, says Luke Harding The assault was as brutal as it was predictable. On Friday and Saturday Erdoğan had hosted a European Union meeting in Istanbul. Rumour had it that Turkey‘s prime minister would send in riot police to clear the demonstrators from Taksim Square [...] → Read the full article…
Tens of thousands of Turks mass again in Taksim Square, where activists have been sleeping in tents and buses. Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK party has ruled out early elections as tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators defied his call for an immediate end to protests. Hüseyin Çelik, deputy chairman of the Justice and Development (AK) party founded by [...] → Read the full article…
ISTANBUL: Turkish stocks fell and the lira weakened Monday after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan railed against speculators and held a tough line on protests, and as Moody’s warned that prolonged unrest could have a negative effect on credit. The cost of insuring Turkish debt against default rose to the highest since the end of October 2012, according to data from Markit, [...] → Read the full article…
There is a bitter irony to events in Turkey. The man who told the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak before his fall that “no government can survive against the will of its people” dismissed his own civil movement as looters, riffraff and foreign agents. The man who sent the army back to its barracks, and pushed back the power of Turkey’s [...] → Read the full article…
The European Parliament, – having regard to the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 and its provisions on the right to freedom of association and the right to freedom of speech, – having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1996, especially its Article 19 enshrining freedom of expression and Articles 21 and 22 enshrining freedom of [...] → Read the full article…
Peaceful protests in cities throughout Turkey have been met with violence from police. The president of the Turkish Medical Association, Ahmet Ozdemir Aktan, calls for an end to inappropriate use of chemical agents Millions of Turkish citizens are outraged by the violent interference of the government in peaceful protests aimed at saving Istanbul’s Gezi Park.1 Within a few days this [...] → Read the full article…
The protesters seen throwing Molotov cocktails at the police in Taksim during today’s intervention were not affiliated with the Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) despite carrying the party’s flag, an executive board member of the party has said. Aziz Küçük said an effective police siege was surrounding the party office on Taksim’s Tarlabaşı, and officials were trying to break into the [...] → Read the full article…