Fifteen-year-old Berkin Elvan has died after 269 days in a coma. The Istanbul schoolboy incurred a head injury that doctors say was most likely inflicted by police shooting a teargas canister directly at him at close range. The incident happened during the June 2013 protests in many Istanbul neighborhoods and in cities across Turkey, triggered by the police’s violent dispersal [...] → Read the full article…
Okan Göçer sustained head injuries due to a tear gas canister on June 1st on Istiklal Street where he had gone to participate in the Gezi protests. He was in a coma for twenty one days. The left side of his head collapsed as a result of his broken skull. We met with him at Okmeydanı Hospital. He wore a [...] → Read the full article…
One of the greatest accomplishments of the protests, for these three individuals, was the chance to meet and experience unity with people from different religions, classes and ethnicities. Although the Gezi protests may have faded a little over the past six weeks, they haven’t for protesters. No youngster in Turkey has ever seen such massive state violence in action before. Before [...] → Read the full article…
Nurse Hazal Kangal was taken into custody while she was on her emergency service shift. Nurse Kangal, who was on duty in Ankara, Basbakanlik during Gezi resistance had been on call for 24 hours when she was taken into custody for “being flagged” on another incident. Kangal was detained before within the scope of Hopa case, for attending the protests [...] → 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…
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…
A young woman, who rode a bike, photographed the events helped people the during Gezi protests in Ankara on 2 June, has been beaten up by the police while eating at a cafe. She was harshly abused by the police for half an hour because she had a cycle helmet that was taken as evidence of ‘being a demonstrator’. She [...] → Read the full article…
You see the question in this title… It wipes you out. It shatters you, it ruins you. How can any heart endure this pain? It’s your kid, it’s your life… What could be beyond that? There, Berkin, has been sleeping for 39 days, just like that… He has had two brain surgeries. He is still unconscious. It’s not clear whether [...] → Read the full article…
Although the Ministry of Justice has denied the accusation of the torture of eight people who were arrested during the Gezi Park protests, a refutation has come from 19 year old Özgür Yildirim who was, himself, tortured . Speaking, for the first time, to Firat News Agency (AFN)about what he had been through, Yildirim said, “My toes and my nose [...] → Read the full article…