A top Turkish official apologized for the "police aggression" that fueled nationwide protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as trade unions threw their weight behind the demonstrations Tuesday. The 240,000-member KESK confederation of public-sector workers called for a two-day strike to protest what it called the "fascism" of Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party. The protests began over plans to replace an Istanbul park with a new development, but spread nationwide after a heavy-handed crackdown by police. After chaotic scenes in the streets Monday that continued late into the night and sent tear gas wafting through the air, the situation was relatively calm Tuesday in Istanbul's Taksim Square, near the park where the protest movement began, and in the capital Ankara.
Riot police around Ankara's central Kizilay Square brought in armored vehicles topped with water cannon in a show of force Tuesday evening, but the demonstrations throughout the day were calm. The protests have morphed into larger complaints against Erdogan, who has led Turkey for 10 years. His critics call him paternalistic and authoritarian, accusing him of accumulating more and more power and growing less tolerant of dissent. In Istanbul, the crowds have been chanting "Tayyip resign" -- referring to Erdogan -- and "shoulder to shoulder against fascism."
Police, protestors clash in Ankara, Turkey
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc apologized Tuesday "for the police aggression against our citizens who were involved in the initial protests and acted with environmental concern," Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported. He said security forces had been ordered to only use gas in self-defense. "They are doing a hard job. When they are executing their jobs, they may sometimes use extraordinary, even excessive, use of force. But they wait in a passive mode unless something comes from the other side," Arinc said. And he added, "I don't think we owe an apology to those who caused destruction on the streets and who interfered with people's freedom."
The Turkish Medical Association said that at least 3,195 people were injured in clashes Sunday and Monday, with 26 in serious or critical condition. Most of the injuries were in Istanbul. One protester, Mehmet Ayvalitas, died of his injuries, the medical association said. And the governor of Hatay in southeastern Turkey said that a 22-year-old man, Abdulah Comert, was killed with a firearm by unknown people during demonstrations late Monday, Anadolu reported. Erdogan's opponents appear determined to continue the demonstrations despite the prime minister's comment Monday that he expects the situation to return to normal "within a few days." Erdogan, who left the country Monday on a four-day trip to North Africa, has responded by dismissing the demonstrations as the work of "extreme elements" and marginal groups. "My smart citizens will recognize this, then they will give them the right lesson," he said Monday.
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I was, in my capacity as a reporter, among the thousands of citizens who thronged the streets of central Istanbul on May 31 in what some are labeling “A Turkish Spring” and “A Turkish Occupy” movement. Other commentators have resorted to the lazy old clichés of “secularists versus Islamists.” Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists they are "provocateurs." None of these capture the nature of protests that have engulfed the country. These began when police staged a predawn operation on May 31 to disperse citizens who were demonstrating peacefully against a government-backed development project that would uproot dozens of trees in Taksim Square. The diversity of the protesters defies any such neat categorization.
Destination Taksim
It was close to 8 p.m. as I inched my way along Istiklal Avenue, one of the main commercial arteries leading up to the square. When I hit the historic Francophone Galatasaray Lycee, the crowds grew. I could barely move. Amid all the clapping and chanting, there was one common refrain, “Erdogan resign! Government resign!” Early on, I encountered a group of young men and women who were all wearing the same white and yellow masks to shield themselves from the acrid stench of tear gas that pierced the air. They said they worked for an advertising company. "Our boss printed special T-shirts for us and gave us the masks; he encouraged us to be here,” Selin Bayraktar told Al-Monitor. “Why would he do that?” I asked. “We initially joined the demonstrators to protect our trees, nothing political,” explained Bayraktar. But when Erdogan, “imperiously” waved aside their objections, declaring that the project would proceed, “something snapped,” she said. “We are not for or against any political party, we are against dictatorship, Erdogan is a dictator, write this if you dare.”
Riot police use tear gas to disperse the crowd during anti-government protests at Taksim Square in central Istanbul
Farther on, members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) linked arms to form a human chain. There may have been around 50-60 of them. I couldn’t quite tell, but they were a minority. Ilhan Cihaner, a CHP lawmaker, nodded at me bleary-eyed. “Pepper gas,” he said. “The protests will continue until the park is saved. But it's not just about the park, it's about this repressive regime: People are fed up. They have to go.” Never mind that CHP members on the city council voted in favor of the project. Time to move on. As I get closer to Taksim, the smoke thickens. I feel dizzy and my lungs begin to burn.
The scenes are increasingly chaotic. Water cannons spray the crowd. Police in riot gear are dragging a man toward an armored van. “For me, it's only about the trees, nothing else. I voted for Erdogan,” piped up an unfazed 30-something housewife, her hair covered Islamic-style. “Destroying all the green space, where will my kids play? It's not right.” And her name? “No need,” she responded as a youth with a pierced nose and tattooed arms sprayed a milky liquid on her face. “It's for the tear gas,” he explained. His name was Mert and he was in his final year at the nearby German Lycee. Were his parents worried about him? “No, they support me. Look, we are talking about one and a half million trees.” What? Had he seen the park? It couldn’t even fit a hundred, let alone a million. Disinformation, it seemed, was flowing as fast as the gas. He shrugged and continued to spray.
Read more: Who Are Turkey?s Protesters? The View From Taksim Square - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
Throughout the recent upheaval, Mr. Erdogan’s behavior has given new fuel to already-simmering questions about his aims and methods — whether he has turned more autocrat than democrat, or at the least whether a deft politician has fallen into overconfidence. Mr. Erdogan’s political rise has been widely seen as the catalyst for a new era of Turkish influence and prosperity, and he has cast his government as a democratic model for nations with Muslim populations rising up against dictators. Domestically, he has the security of a strong power base among Turkish religious conservatives — a majority of the electorate — who were marginalized by the military and the country’s old secular elite. He alluded to that support on Monday, as protests continued across Turkey’s major cities. He said he could “hardly contain” his constituents from leaving their homes to mount a counterprotest on his behalf. “Be calm, this will all pass,” he added.
But for his opponents, his harsh dismissal of the protesters gathering in Istanbul and Ankara as “bums,” and in particular his allowing the police to crack down on what began as a peaceful demonstration against the razing of a park in Taksim Square, is public evidence of a longer slide into authoritarianism. They cite years of intensifying crackdowns on dissent and the news media, and purges of the military officer corps. “He has a highly majoritarian understanding of democracy,” said Ilter Turan, a political scientist at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “He believes that with 51 percent of the vote he can rule in an unrestrained fashion. He doesn’t want checks and balances.” And after 10 years of Mr. Erdogan (pronounced AIR-doh-wan), a former Islamist activist, many liberal or secular Turks have expressed weariness over what they see as his attempts to impose on their private lives: what Cengiz Candar, a popular columnist, described Monday as his “conceit and arrogance.”
Demonstrators ran from tear gas fired by the police during a clash in Istanbul on Monday. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a political crisis.
He has sought to restrict alcohol, has repeatedly held that women should have at least three children and sometimes seems drawn to peculiar topics for pontification: this year, for example, he declared that the “era of white bread is over,” and that Turks should go whole grain. There is an added sting for many who have supported Mr. Erdogan. In his speeches, he has been an eloquent defender of inclusiveness and human rights — statements that added to his political draw among Turks who might otherwise have been put off by his Islamist past. Increasingly, however, his actions have seemed at odds with his words. Mr. Erdogan has been lionized for serving jail time for reciting a poem with religious overtones in public while he was Istanbul’s mayor. And in an interview last year with The Istanbul Review, a literary journal, he said: “Censorship is an unacceptable method of obstruction, not only in literature but in all arts, media, politics and many other fields. The freedom of expression is a right that we work to solidify every day and a subject we are particularly sensitive about.”
But in the years since he became prime minister, his government has become a leading jailer of journalists and opposition writers. And over the weekend, he was particularly vocal about protesters’ use of social media, singling out Twitter as a “menace” used to disseminate lies. Mr. Erdogan, 59, grew up in a pious, low-income neighborhood in Istanbul when Turkey was ruled by an elite that heavy-handedly banished religious expression from public life. In rising to power, he took that once-peripheral social class to the center of Turkish public life. And analysts say it will be that constituency’s reaction that determines how he weathers the current crisis. For now, it seems to be standing solidly behind him.
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While the atmosphere in Istanbul's Taksim Square has changed dramatically from music festival by day to frontline fight by night, there has been a constant throughout: the endless jokes about an elected prime minister who is seemingly out of touch with a large portion of his nation's youth. Istanbul's anti-government protesters have inhaled tear gas and faced water canon, but they are still laughing all the way to Gezi Park, the symbolic centre of the demonstrations, which have now spread to at least 60 cities across the country. "We have witnessed incredible things that have left us psychologically traumatised, and although we are determined to win, we may actually lose this revolution because of laughter," said Fatih, a graphic designer who clashed with police overnight earlier in the week.
Gezi Park 'for sale'
In the past two years, Turkey has become known for a crackdown on freedom of speech and is well-documented for jailing one of the highest numbers of journalists worldwide. No surprise then that once the liberals broke their silence over how they felt about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's conservative views and policies, an explosion of expression followed in the form of satire, irony and outright mockery of the popular leader on Istanbul's streets and social media.
Turkey's answer to Ebay, Sahibinden.com, became Tayyibinden.com where Gezi Park is now up for sale. The advertisement reads: "A place far from the hustle and bustle of the city, but in the heart of downtown. It's an ideal space for the family. You can use it comfortably. With planning permission for shopping mall. Ten steps from Taksim Square with road access. Special subway entrance. I'm selling it because I'm no longer interested in it. Sun from four sides. Includes activities."
Protesters also placed an ad, in which a water canon is for sale, poking fun at the police: "The water canon we took from our dear state two days ago is for sale. Hardly used. It has a capacity of spraying 1,000 police offers in one hour." It continues: "Painted with words on it that I can't say here. Includes a bonus, police uniforms are inside. Includes a smoke machine. We are selling it because we are upgrading to the next model. Price: you can ask the media, they know the true value."
'Riffraff' phenomenon
