For the records: On Saturday 15 June, police who fired water cannons, sound bombs and tear gas was aware that there were many children and elderly people on site at Taksim. Unfortunately. I happen to sense some events in advance. It happened again. It was around 8:00 pm. I stayed at Gezi Park for about an hour and listened to [...] → Read the full article…
The course of the protests that started as a demonstration against the construction of a shopping mall in place of Gezi Park under the guise of building a replica of former Ottoman military barracks influenced people in different ways. As a Kaldıraç (a monthly revolutionary socialist magazine) poster hanging in Taksim says, “Now everyone has a resistance, solidarity and violence [...] → Read the full article…
At the Hospital, she is describing that moment (we are deeply sorry, we hope you get well soon) Arslan, who is under treatment in Şişli Etfal Hospital, told of that day and what happened: I was at the solidarity commission. We were administering medicine to the peoples’ eyes. Suddenly there was shooting from the back. The lights went down. In [...] → Read the full article…
ISTANBUL — After 18 days of antigovernment demonstrations that presented a broad rebuke to the country’s leadership, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the riot police to storm the center of the protest movement in Gezi Park on Saturday evening, setting off a night of chaos in downtown Istanbul. As protesters fled the tear gas and water cannons, the police [...] → Read the full article…
The Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) ruled the closure of Turkish channel Ulusal on Thursday on the grounds of “lack of license” and “authorization”. In a statement responding to the closure ban, the channel’s General Coordinator of Broadcast, Mustafa Kara, denied the allegations, underlining that Hayat Tv run a satellite broadcast from theTurksat Satellite on the basis of [...] → Read the full article…
Ethem Sarısülük, 26, died late Wednesday after struggling for life for 11 days since he was shot on the head during the first days of protests in Ankara, on June 1, in solidarity with Gezi Park resistance. Sarısülük died after being declared brain dead on June 5, increasing the number of casualties in Gezi protests across the country to three. [...] → Read the full article…
As academics concerned with the recent developments in Turkey, we stand in solidarity with the people peacefully protesting to protect Gezi Park in Taksim, and we condemn the excessive police brutality that was inflicted on them. What started on Monday, May 27, as a movement to peacefully protest the demolition of a public park and its replacement with a shopping [...] → Read the full article…
The meeting of Amnesty International Turkey officials with Istanbul Gov. Hüseyin Avni Mutlu to invite him to stop police violence against peaceful protesters yesterday ended with disappointment, AI Turkey director Murat Çekiç has said. “Unfortunately, Mr. Governor kept saying that police violence had a basis in legitimate cause. In that sense our meeting was a disappointment. On the other hand, [...] → Read the full article…
Thousands of lawyers from bar associations in İstanbul, Ankara, Batman, Diyarbakır, Adana, Eskişehir, Bursa, Konya, Antep, Denizli, Aydın and İzmir have protested yesterday’s detention and beating of 44 lawyers in Istanbul Courthouse. Armored police officers intervened yesterday a group lawyers who were making a press statement on the steps of Istanbul Courthouse to protest the police violence in Taksim Square. Police [...] → Read the full article…
In a statement on yesterday’s incidents at Taksim Square, Turkish Journalists Association (TGC) said eighteen journalists were wounded and four others beaten and detained by police while covering news during the daylong protests at Taksim Square on Tuesday. TGC called on the government, the opposition and the media to active duty to ensure the safety of journalists and underlined that [...] → Read the full article…