OCCUPY GEZI - Attention! Turkish democracy needs you!

[alpine]

Don't worry, they are protesting your sorry asses at home too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4UcVy1SfRs

I see 40 lights.
Not 40 million.

Still better than burning down things on the street.

No worries, this is how it starts. Same happened in all oppressed countries this same way.

These people are saying to the 50% voted for Tayyip Erdogan; that Erdogan is not the only option, they(50% voted for Erdogan, the religious conservatives) can come up with another option, who is not as psychopath as Tayyip Erdogan, who is not in a fantasy land thinking he is the sultan of the world, who is more sane and have some common sense. They are saying this guy is dangerous, even for the 50%.

And it will happen, someone in AKP will say to these people; that he would be more merciful, more democratic against them. And some of Erdogan's voter will vote for him along side with all these protesters. Erdogan is over, Turkey will find better alternatives.

GAME OVER for Tayyip

 

[waltky]

Protesters in Turkey call PM a dictator...

Erdogan rejects 'dictator' claims
Jun 2,`13 -- Turkey's prime minister on Sunday rejected claims that he is a "dictator," dismissing protesters as an extremist fringe, even as thousands returned to the landmark Istanbul square that has become the site of the fiercest anti-government outburst in years.

Over the past three days, protesters around the country have unleashed pent-up resentment against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who after 10 years in office many Turks see as an uncompromising figure with undue influence in every part of life. A huge, exuberant protest in Taksim Square subsided overnight, but an estimated 10,000 people again streamed into the area on Sunday, many waving flags, chanting "victory, victory, victory" and calling on Erdogan's government to resign. About 7,000 people took part in protests in Ankara, the capital, that turned violent on Sunday, with demonstrators throwing fire bombs and police firing tear gas. Scores of protesters were detained.

Some protesters have compared Erdogan to a sultan and denounced him as a dictator. Scrambling to show he was unbowed and appealing to a large base of conservative Turks who support him, Erdogan delivered two speeches on Sunday and appeared in a television interview. With Turkish media otherwise giving scant reports about the protests, many turned to social media outlets for information on the unrest. "There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."

Turkish protesters clash with riot police near the former Ottoman palace, Dolmabahce, where Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains an office in Istanbul, Turkey. Protests in Istanbul, Ankara and several other Turkish cities appear to have subsided Sunday, after days of fierce clashes following a police crackdown on a peaceful gathering as protesters denounced what they see as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian style.

Under Erdogan's leadership, Turkey has boosted economic growth and raised its international profile. But he has been a divisive figure at home, with his government recently passing legislation curbing the sale of alcohol and taking a strong stand against the Syrian regime that some believe has put security at risk. The demonstrations were ignited on Friday by a violent police crackdown on a peaceful sit-in to prevent the uprooting of trees at Taksim Square in Istanbul and have since spread around the country. The Turkish Doctors Association said the three days of demonstrations have left 1,000 people injured in Istanbul and 700 in Ankara.

Sunday's violence occurred in Ankara when the protesters tried to march toward Erdogan's office from the city's main square. A group of youths formed a barricade and hurled fire bombs or threw back gas canisters at police. An Associated Press reporter saw at least eight injured people being carried away, and police appeared to directly target journalists with tear gas. The state-run Anadolu Agency said 200 demonstrators were detained.

MORE

 

[Synthaholic]

Raycip Erdogan has been a disaster for Türkiye.

99.98 % of Turks want economic prosperity and not Anarchy.
That's why they stay at home.
0.02 % of Turkey would be 15.000 people, the people on the street don't number that.

I think, that Turks can decide for themselves what is good for them and what is not good.
They already decided 3 times that Erdogan is good for them at the ballot-box.

He has moved the country away from Ataturk's vision of a secular, Western democracy.

He also purged the military of anyone who might stage a coup to maintain that vision.

 

[ekrem]

He also purged the military of anyone who might stage a coup to maintain that vision.

Well done.

A coup is nothing romantic.
When the Army steps in GDP drops, capital and intelligentsia leaves the country.
People will also be tortured or will simply disappear.
In general a coup sets a country's development-level back for several years. No thank you.

 

[Synthaholic]

He also purged the military of anyone who might stage a coup to maintain that vision.

Well done.

A coup is nothing romantic.
When the Army steps in GDP drops, capital and intelligentsia leaves the country.
People will also be tortured or will simply disappear.
In general a coup sets a country's development-level back for several years. No thank you.

Well, yes.

But without those coups, Türkiye would have long ago become another Islamic fundamentalist theocracy.

Would that have been better?

Perhaps the blame for the coups should go to the ones who got in power, then tried to change Türkiye.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Lookit dat buncha hooligans hangin' out dem windows...

Turkish Leader Says Protests Will Not Stop Plans for Park
June 2, 2013 — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey dismissed the tens of thousands of protesters who battled for two days with police officers in the streets of Istanbul as “looters” and “bums” on Sunday. He vowed to push ahead with plans to demolish a public park — a trigger for the spasm of public anger that left Istanbul’s main commercial district strewn with graffiti and broken glass.

“We will not yield to a few looters coming to that square and provoking our people, our nation, based on their misinformation,” Mr. Erdogan said in a speech carried live on television. He brushed aside the protesters’ accusations that he was becoming dictatorial, saying he was simply “a servant of the people.” For much of Sunday, the mood at the protests in Taksim Square was one of celebration. Tens of thousands of demonstrators returned to the square claiming victory after the police withdrew on Saturday. The protesters erected improvised barricades of construction materials and burnt public buses on streets leading to the square, replacing the ones that city workers had cleared away the day before.

The mood at the protests in Taksim Square was one of celebration for much of Sunday, until the police fired tear gas on protesters in the Besiktas neighborhood.

But later Sunday night, the police fired tear gas on protesters in Besiktas, a nearby neighborhood. Protesters also confronted the police and were met with tear gas in the capital, Ankara, and in Izmir on the Aegean coast, underscoring that the civil unrest directed at Mr. Erdogan has yet to run its course. Mr. Erdogan said the protests were the work of the main opposition bloc, the Republican People’s Party, known by its Turkish initials C.H.P. He said the government would move ahead with controversial development projects, which would involve demolishing the park and constructing a mosque nearby, which secular Turks have opposed as another effort by Mr. Erdogan and his political party, Justice and Development, to expand the role of religion in Turkish society.

Though the demonstrations in Istanbul began in reaction to the plan to demolish the park, they soon grew into a broad reproach of Mr. Erdogan’s decade-long rule, which many Turks say has produced an overbearing government that dismisses the concerns of secular citizens. The protests followed the passing in Parliament of a controversial law restricting the sale and consumption of alcohol; on Saturday night, after reoccupying Taksim Square, many protesters broke out bottles of beer and chanted slogans calling for Mr. Erdogan to resign.

MORE

See also:

Protests in Turkey: Will Taksim Become Erdogan’s Tahrir Square?
June 02, 2013 > Protests on Istiklal Avenue, the heart of Istanbul’s shopping and entertainment district, are nothing new. Over the past year, Turks have protested against the deteriorating state of press freedoms, a reckless construction boom, a draft law placing new curbs on abortion, the government’s response to the civil war raging in neighboring Syria, the jailing of hundreds of top generals on coup charges, the arrests of thousands of Kurdish activists accused of abetting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey labels a terrorist group, and, most recently, new restrictions on alcohol sales.

But the mass protests against the moderately Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that have taken place over the past two days are different. For one, they are the biggest in years. On Friday evening, thousands of people streamed down Istiklal en route to Taksim Square, where the spark that ignited the ongoing unrest was first lit, before being beaten back by police units. The following day, as police abandoned the square, even more protesters arrived, their numbers in the tens if not hundreds of thousands. Protests and clashes have since broken out in a number of other cities across Turkey, including the capital, Ankara. As of Saturday night, 939 people had been arrested and 79 wounded in 90 demonstrations around the country, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Volunteer doctors around Taksim estimated that the number of injured exceeded 1,000.

It all began on May 27 in a small park right behind Taksim, where a number of activists converged to protest plans to turn the area — one of the few green spaces in the city center — into a replica of an Ottoman barracks and shopping arcade. Over the next few days, as construction workers began uprooting trees, police repeatedly raided the sit-in, dispersing the protesters with tear gas, batons and water cannons. Images of wounded young men and women immediately began making the rounds on TV and social media, sparking wave after wave of popular outrage, as well as condemnation from human-rights groups, which decried the excessive use of tear gas against unarmed protesters.

Things reached a boiling point on Friday morning after the police raided Gezi Park once again, burning the protesters’ tents, firing more tear gas and leaving dozens injured. By the end of the day, the streets that feed into Taksim were filled to the brink. The grievances of all groups opposed to the government seemed to have rolled into one. On Istiklal Avenue, Zeynep, a 21-year-old student who had taken part in the protests from Day One, complained about the closing of state theaters, police brutality and runaway development. “We don’t need any more shopping malls, we need trees!” she shouted, her words mixing with chants calling for Prime Minister Erdogan to step down. Nearby, a pair of teenage girls accused Erdogan of restricting free speech and steering Turkey, a secular but Muslim-majority country, toward Islamic rule.

Read more: Protests in Turkey: Will Taksim Become Erdogan's Tahrir Square? | TIME.com

Related:

Turkish premier brands protesters extremists
Mon Jun 3, 2013 - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused anti-government protesters on Monday of walking "arm-in-arm with terrorism", remarks that could further inflame public anger after three days of some of the most violent riots in decades.

Hundreds of police and protesters have been injured since Friday, when a demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square grew into mass protests against a heavy-handed crackdown and what opponents call Erdogan's authoritarianism. Protests have been held in dozens of cities. The demonstrations showed no sign of abating on Monday with protesters gathering again in Taksim Square. Barricades of rubble hindered traffic alongside the Bosphorus waterway and blocked entry into the area. Leftist groups hung out red and black flags and banners calling on Erdogan to resign and declaring: "Whatever happens, there is no going back." In Ankara, protesters threw up a barricade in the Kizilay government quarter and lit a fire in the road as a helicopter circled overhead. Police charged demonstrators, mostly teenagers, and scattered them using tear gas and water cannon.

Erdogan has dismissed the protests as the work of secularist enemies never reconciled to the mandate of his AK party, which has roots in Islamist parties banned in the past but which also embraces center-right and nationalist elements. The party has won three straight elections and overseen an economic boom, increasing Turkey's influence in the region. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements," Erdogan said at a news conference before departing on a trip to North Africa. "We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism." "Many things have happened in this country, they've hanged, they've poisoned, but we will walk towards the future with determination and through holding onto our values," he added, an allusion to Turkey's murky past of military coups.

Turkey's leftist Public Workers Unions Confederation (KESK), which represents 240,000 members, said it would hold a "warning strike" on June 4-5 to protest over the crackdown on what had begun as peaceful protests. The unrest delivered a blow to Turkish financial markets that have thrived under Erdogan. Shares fell more than 10 percent and the lira dropped to 16-month lows. Since taking office in 2002, Erdogan has dramatically cut back the power of the army, which ousted four governments in the second half of the 20th century and which hanged and jailed many, including a prime minister. In 1997 Turkey's first Islamist government was eased from office by the military.

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[alpine]

We have to mention the president said democratic demands of people should be heard. The president do not have much power against the PM but he is also a conservative religious guy who helped Tayyip to get where he is now.

Seems like Tayyip is losing support of old friends.

GAME OVER for Tayyip

 

[Synthaholic]

We have to mention the president said democratic demands of people should be heard. The president do not have much power against the PM but he is also a conservative religious guy who helped Tayyip to get where he is now.

Seems like Tayyip is losing support of old friends.

GAME OVER for Tayyip

Gül is definitely a step down from the highly regarded Bülent Ecevit.

 

[ekrem]

Granny says, "Lookit dat buncha hooligans hangin' out dem windows...

(...)

(...)

Communists.


#Evedönüyoruz (we're going back home) is trend topic on Twitter.

 

[alpine]

We have to mention the president said democratic demands of people should be heard. The president do not have much power against the PM but he is also a conservative religious guy who helped Tayyip to get where he is now.

Seems like Tayyip is losing support of old friends.

GAME OVER for Tayyip

Gül is definitely a step down from the highly regarded Bülent Ecevit.

For sure but a good alternative to the the psychopath currently in charge. Enough democracy will create enough fresh air for better options in the future. But for now I think Gul will have to do.

 

[Synthaholic]

Erdoğan is only about 70 days from passing Demirel for #2 in PM time served, with İsmet İnönü #1.

 

[alpine]

President Abdullah Gul: "We got the message. People have the right to demand and protest. Democracy is not only about elections."

PM Tayyip Erdogan: "What message, nobody told me anything."

It is over for Erdogan. AKP is not Erdogan's toy to play around. Lots of different elements of society invested in this political movement, especially different religious groups who allied with Erdogan just because he was able to deliver them. They simply will not put all their hard work at risk just because Erdogan thinks that it is a good idea to start a civil war over bunch of trees. AKP bigwigs are aware that Erdogan loses it lately. He can not deliver stability for the prosperity of his investors anymore.

At the end of the day, it is all about politics, it is all about business. Even Hitler has been attempted to be assassinated by his own generals, multiple times.

 

[alpine]

Fireworks in Istanbul, celebrating the dictators soon to be downfall

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UvZbVN6v5U]Tear Gas Stun Grenades Fire Chaos Overtakes Istanbul Protest - YouTube[/ame]