#OccupyGezi protestesters in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey.
Photograph via #OccupyGezi
Protests in Turkey reached its third week. Along these three weeks, whole country witnessed the censor on media, police brutality, demontrations by thousands of protesters, deaths, injuries etc… Here is the summary of last three weeks:
At the early stages of demonstrates, Erdogan defined protesters as “Capulcu (looters)” . But this action backfired when protesters embraced the labeling. Protesters even made a music video by changing the lyrics of “Everyday I am Shuffling” song:
Media Censorship
Even though Turkish mainstream media self- censored the protests, social media was active and is still active along the protests. CnnTurk, NTV and Haberturk (The main news channels of Turkey) were on the spot of self-censoring. After CnnTurk published a documentary about penguins instead of covering the protests, twitter user emre erdemtweeted:
@emreerdem Whole country is shaking, but there is a documentary about penguins on CnnTurk. Love our media…
The protests on media censor continued in front of the NTV headquarters since NTV chose underestimating the anti-government protests. Their brother company Garanti Bank, a national Bank was aimed by protesters, and the bank announced that they lost around1500 customers. Recently, BBC suspended the cooperation with NTV, reasoning not airing their program, “World Agenda”. Mentioned program prepared by Selin Girit, and she tweeted about the censor on the program on her own twitter account:
There were also some interesting coincidences on Turkish media, seven different newspapers had the same headline on the same day. Twitter user Ozlem Isler shared the picture of the newspapers:
Police Brutality
Police brutality was the biggest concern of protesters. The video of the policemen taking a protester under custody and people are trying to protect the protester by throwing whatever they can find through the policemen, was shocking. Here is the video:
Twitter user Capulcu S,A is talking about the togetherness of the nation against the police brutality:
Ethem Sarisuluk’s death by a police shot was certainly the most heartbreaking moment of the protests. The policeman is still missing.Five people died and around 5000 people injured along the protests. The mayor of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, said on a live TV show[tr]; it was not the police who killed Ethem, it was the other protesters killed him by throwing a rock at him. But the video says different (warning +18, contains death):
You can learn more about police brutality during the protests here.
Social Media: “The Worst Menace to Society”
Prime minister Tayyip Erdogan was angry at social media and called it “worst menace to the society“. Twitter user Pelin told the reason behind Erdogan’s anger by sharing the Bloomberg report about Twitter usage in Turkey during protests:
Prime minister Erdogan was also angry at the protesters who sheltered to a mosque during the police attacks. He told the media that protesters dishonored the mosque by entering to mosque with their shoes on, and they drank alcohol in the mosque. This video here says the opposite what Tayyip Erdogan is saying. On the video, protesters are sheltering in the mosque and the doctors are treating the injured people (warning video contains injured people and blood):
Contradicting Messages
Huseyin Avni Mutlu, the governor of istanbul, also gave shocking speeches. On his twitter account, he told the people that there was not going to be any attacks at Gezi Park, where the protests began, by the police, but just hours later of this words, police attacked heavily at Gezi Park:
@Valimutlu: Gezi Park and Taksim will not be touched, nobody will touch you. You are entrusted to your police brothers since this morning and so on.
Twitter user Utangac Adam wrote on governor’s Twitter profile:
@UtangacAdam: Our elders would always say “There is no school for learning humanity”. Now, I understand them better…
Prime minister Erdogan arranged several ralliesfor his suuporters including Ankara and istanbul. Erdogan threatened the protesters to clear Gezi Park by calling them terrorists. After his message on clearing the Gezi Park from protesters, Turkish police attacked at Gezi Park on 16th of June, and took control over the Taksim Square and Gezi park.
Passive Resistance: Standing Man Protests
Now the protests turned into a passive resistance. The Duran Adam (Standing Man) protests started by a performance artist, Erdem Gunduz, who stood at Taksim Square without moving for three hours. Protestspread quickly all over the country. Poet Bejan Matur said on her twitter account:
@bejanmatur: Standing Man is the most sophisticated protest in the history of Turkish Republic. A great performance that ruling party cannot deal with, ever.
Turkish people showed their desire for democracy, human rights and environmentalism along the last three weeks. Even the policemen were fierce, politicians were angry, media was silent, they continued and still continue on their journey for a better life. Maybe this video of protesters cheering sarcastically for more teargas thrown by police, can tell their ambition for a better country and a better life:
Written by Baran Mavzer