After the first week, the police intervention decreased considerably and Kordon was transformed into a liberated, ‘Police Free Zone.’ Therefore, it was easier to sit and talk. On the evening of May 31st, I and my parents were at a wedding. Gezi Park was not a significant issue on my agenda. How could it be, anyway? There was nothing extraordinary [...] → Read the full article…
Sevinç Dok, who was detained during the Armutlu resistance, which lasted for several days, told her experience in the prison in a letter that she sent. Dok stated that the detainees are getting the news. “Our minds are at peace, we know that we have been falsely accused.” She adds, “we are not giving up eating the bread until its [...] → Read the full article…
Nowadays, land and inhabited spaces are images of the “money” that needs to augment itself through their use and market values. When I arrived in İstanbul, I immediately went to one of the forums held in the parks. I wanted to witness the point reached in the course of a month. The attendees’ contribution, enthusiasm, sincerity, seriousness, authenticity impressed me [...] → Read the full article…
Civil unrest is becoming a more recurrent feature of urban life in London, as it is for cities around the world, among them Athens, Madrid, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul. Are riots (not just protests and organised social movements) now part of a toolkit to reclaim the right to the city? David Harvey writes [...] → Read the full article…
Fethullah, 14, who fled domestic violence and took refuge in the Gezi Park encountered state violence this time. The police first fined him, then beat him, and finally shot him in the eye with a rubber bullet. “I saw the Gezi, it was beautiful” The Taksim Gezi Park, the symbol of the Gezi movement, hosted those whose “stories” were not [...] → Read the full article…
We went out on the streets. We liked our fists more when they were raised, we liked our voices better when they were multiplied with other voices. Puzzled, angry, we shouted. We were injured and murdered. Even so, we heightened our hope. Things were not all right in the country. At the break of dawn the tents of good people [...] → Read the full article…
During the Gezi resistance Mehmet Istif (36) was sprayed into his face with pepper gas causing severe injuries to the inside of his mouth. These injuries have been treated for the past month. Istif, who has lost one fourth of his tongue and has difficulties in speaking, said, “I will apply to the judiciary for the identification of the chemical [...] → Read the full article…
“The resistance of revolutionaries and people will teach AKP a painful lesson” says Beycan Taşkıran, ESP Istanbul Provincial Executive, who had a rib fractured during the police attack which started on June 15th against the Gezi Park protests and who had been put in an airless jail cell for 4 days right after being detained. Beycan Taşkıran is a socialist [...] → Read the full article…
The country’s east and west are both resisting. “Long live the brotherhood of people” chants are echoing everywhere. It was a mistake to expect those in power to bring about peace, so now the people are taking over the process. We enter Taksim with slogans, folk songs, people bumping into each other and apologizing, chanting “Come, come, come!” and the [...] → Read the full article…
It was towards midnight when my students, once again, came to rescue me in the moment of devastation under the influence of gas; they found me sitting on the ground at the corner of a side-street… I had run out of Talcid solution and water. I was enormously excited when Bianet’s editorial director, Haluk Kalafat, first talked about the idea [...] → Read the full article…