Gülen Effigy Hanged, Turkish Flags & Fire at Taksim Square as Erdoğan Supporters Hail Coup Failure

Thousands of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters gathered on Istanbul’s central Taksim Square to celebrate the failure of Friday night's military coup. The demonstration featured flag waving, the chanting of pro-government slogans, songs praising Erdogan and Islamic chants. An effigy of Fettullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in US and the person that Erdogan and his government have charged with orchestrating the coup, was hanged on the square.

Istanbul Clashes Over Turkey's New Internet Laws

Taksim Square, Istanbul

BBC: Turkish riot police have fired water cannon and tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators marching in Istanbul in protest at new laws tightening government control of the internet.

Demonstrators threw fireworks and stones at police cordoning off Taksim Square, the city's main square.

The president is under pressure not to ratify the legislation.

It includes powers allowing authorities to block websites for privacy violations without a court decision.

The opposition says it is part of a government attempt to stifle a corruption scandal.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied accusations of censorship, saying the legislation would make the internet "more safe and free". (+ BBC video) » | Saturday, February 08, 2014

Turkey Unrest: Unions Call Strike Over Crackdown

BBC: Turkish unions have called a strike to protest against the police crackdown on demonstrators.

Turkey's Prime Minister has angrily defended the eviction of protesters from Gezi Park on Saturday night.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan told hundreds of thousands of supporters at a rally in Istanbul on Sunday that the protesters were manipulated by "terrorists".

On Sunday there were continued sporadic clashes between protesters and police in Istanbul and the capital Ankara.

The Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK) and Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK), along with three professional organisations, have announced what they call a one-day work stoppage to demand an end to "police violence".

The unions have called for a march and a rally in Istanbul on Monday afternoon.

Lawyers from the Turkish bar association say that close to 500 people have been detained as part of the police operation against the demonstrators. (+ videos) » | Monday, June 17, 2013

Turkey Protests: Dangerous Waters with No Sign of Compromise
BBC: It began just after dawn on Tuesday: the thud of tear gas fired across Taksim Square in the biggest police operation here for over a week.

Arcs of water cannon were spewed towards protesters, some of whom responded with petrol bombs and bricks.

For 12 days, the central square in Turkey's biggest city had been under the authority of a growing protest movement. This was the moment that the government decided to retake it.

All through the day, the game of cat and mouse continued.

Once the police retreated, the protesters regrouped. They took refuge in the adjoining Gezi Park, where the unrest was first sparked in response to government plans to redevelop it.

I watched as telecoms trucks were set ablaze, black smoke fusing with the white plumes of tear gas into an acrid mix.

Not listening

What began as a demonstration by environmentalists has mushroomed into something far bigger: a fight by disparate groups for greater freedom in Turkey and a preservation of the country's secular order.

They see a government with an authoritarian, neo-Islamist agenda: the highest number of journalists in the world in prison, restrictions on alcohol sales, massive construction projects prioritised over human rights.

"This is not an Arab spring", one protester, Melis Behlil, told me.

"We have free elections here. But the problem is that the person elected doesn't listen to us." » | Mark Lowen | BBC News, Istanbul | Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Erdoğan's Reaction to Turkey Protests Reveals Ominous Putin Parallels
THE GUARDIAN: Leader is used to having things his own way but, civil society movement can no longer be suppressed, says Luke Harding

The assault was as brutal as it was predictable. On Friday and Saturday Erdoğan had hosted a European Union meeting in Istanbul. Rumour had it that Turkey's prime minister would send in riot police to clear away the demonstrators from Taksim Square – which they had peacefully occupied for 12 days — once his European guests had flown home.

And so it proved, with police encircling the square at 6am on Tuesday, firing rubber bullets and teargas, and ripping down banners calling for Erdoğan's resignation. By happy coincidence, Turkey's state media, which for days had blithely ignored the country's massive anti-government demonstrations, was on hand to record the event.

Turkish TV viewers witnessed this: a small group of four or five "demonstrators" throwing molotov cocktails at police. At one point they advance on police lines in a comic Roman-style phalanx while holding the flag of a fringe Marxist party. The "protesters" were in fact middle-aged undercover police officers, staging a not very plausible "attack" on their own for the benefit of the cameras.

But the violence meted out against the genuine protesters camped out under the plane trees of nearby Gezi Park was real enough. Dozens were left choking or injured as teargas billowed across central Istanbul. Meanwhile, some 50 lawyers acting for detained activists were themselves dragged away by police and roughed up at Istanbul's Çağlayan court.

Faced with a choice between engaging with this new, vibrant civil society movement, or crushing it, Erdoğan has picked the latter course. Indeed, his reaction to the nationwide citizens' revolt reveals ominous parallels with another autocratic leader who has recently found himself in a tight spot: Vladimir Putin.

None of this bodes well for Turkey's already tortuous EU accession prospects, for relations between secular and religious Turks, or for the country's democratic future. » | Luke Harding | Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Turkey PM Erdogan Warns Protesters 'It's Over'
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on protesters to leave Istanbul's Taksim square, warning that his patience is running thin.

Read the Telegraph article here | Tuesday, June 11, 2013

'Istanbul Like War Zone': Turkey Clashes Raging with Gas, Bullets & Cannons
Hundreds of police in riot gear are clearing barricades from Istanbul's Taksim square. They've used teargas and rubber bullets to force protesters out, many of who fled to Gezi park, where the unrest started. A crew from RT's Arabic sister Channel has been caught-up in the crackdown when police teargassed demonstrators

Turkey: Riot Police Breach Barricades in Taksim Square
Hundreds of riot police have moved into Istanbul's central Taksim square, firing tear gas and water cannon to disperse anti-government protestors who have been camped out in the square for almost two weeks.

Read the article here | AFP | Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Erdogan's Mishandling of Protests Has Exposed the Myth of a Stable Turkey
THE INDEPENDENT: World View: The PM's inability to counter unrest within and enemies without make any talk of a 'new Ottoman empire' absurd

There is something almost comic in the way the missteps of the Turkish government turned a small demonstration aimed at preserving sycamore trees in Taksim Square from the developers' bulldozers into the biggest and most widespread popular protest ever seen in Turkey. The Turkish security forces made the classic mistake of being pictured on television and social media publicly assaulting peaceable protesters with water cannon and pepper spray. Just enough violence was used to enrage and provoke while wholly failing to intimidate.

There was a time when brutality by the security forces was easier to keep off TV screens by censorship or frightening journalists and media-owners. But these mechanisms no longer work when people have a multitude of TV channels inside and outside the country to choose from. Running documentaries on penguins, as CNN Turkey notoriously did, simply creates a vacuum of information which is rapidly filled by protesters. The government's version of what is happening becomes self-marginalised and is ignored.

It is astonishing that skilled politicians such as the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and those around him should make so many mistakes in such a short time. It is easy to why Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt should have miscalculated popular reaction to repression at the start of the Arab uprisings in 2011, because as rulers of police states their approach to public opinion was to ignore it. Read on and comment » | Patrick Cockburn | Sunday, June 09, 2013

Lady in the Red Dress and Her Dream of a Turkish Rebirth

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The reluctant heroine who symbolises the Istanbul protests tells Ruth Sherlock she believes people power will prevail in Turkey.

With her red cotton dress, white shoulder bag and flowing black hair, she has become the colour-coded emblem of Turkey's new people-power movement.

Caught on camera as she was sprayed head to toe in tear gas, Ceyda Sungur's treatment at the hands of Istanbul's riot police seemed the epitome of using a "sledgehammer to crack a nut" and encapsulated the government's heavy-handed response to a civilised protest.

Pictures of the "Lady in the Red Dress" quickly spread around the world via the internet. Those who shared the pictures online joined protesters in demanding to know why a woman who looked attired for a summer picnic had been treated like a masked, brick-throwing anarchist.

Last week, Ms Sungur said she was a reluctant heroine, describing herself as just part of a wider grass-roots movement, and pointing out in brief remarks to a Turkish newspaper that hundreds of others had been gassed in similar fashion.

Now, though, having declined requests for interviews from all over the world, Ms Sungur, an academic, has spoken briefly but vividly to The Sunday Telegraph about her involvement in what happened, and how she is now working in a makeshift clinic to help others hurt in demonstrations. » | Ruth Sherlock, Istanbul | Saturday, June 08, 2013

Turkey Protesters Celebrate after Police Leave Istanbul Square
Thousands of protesters celebrated early on Sunday after police withdrew from Istanbul's Taksim Square, the focal point of nationwide protests against Turkey's Islamist-rooted government.

Read the article here | AFP | Sunday, June 02, 2013