President Emeritus, CIEL; Fellow, Foreign Policy Institute, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University
I have been to Gezi Park/Taksim Square in the European side of Istanbul over the past few days during the protests here. This demonstration began over the government’s plan to destroy Gezi Park — essentially the only green area in the heart of Istanbul and a long-time gathering place. The government plans to replace Gezi Park with a shopping mall in the form of a re-creation of Ottoman army barracks. After being met with brutal violence, including water cannon and tear gas attacks by the police (who apparently aimed at the heads of demonstrators given the number of people who lost an eye from being hit by the tear gas canisters), the demonstration morphed into a country-wide set of non-violent demonstrations over abuse of power, denial of human rights, and a set of other grievances, with its center at Gezi Park.
The spirit of Gezi Park is extraordinarily positive, creative and full of humor, with peaceful protesters living in tents, operating free food kitchens stocked by supporters throughout the city, cleaning their trash, even giving medical assistance to a police officer injured by a wind-blown banner. Waves of chants would surge across the park, the most poignant of which came in response to a reading of the names of the demonstrators who had been killed by the police. As each name was read, a roar of “Yasiyor!” came up from the people: “yasiyor” means “still living”. The demonstrations were completely non-violent. Taken as a whole, the Gezi Park demonstration is unique and hopeful.
Mainstream media in Turkey, which are in league with the governing AKP party, provided literally no coverage during the first few days. Even taxi drivers were caught unawares by the presence of thousands of people, reminding one of the North Korean government’s control of factual information. Only independent media such as Acik Radyo and later some independent TV stations covered the situation. Now, reportedly the government is cracking down on the independent TV stations to quash reporting. For an independent reporting of Gezi Park on the web, see http://www.bianet.org/english.
In addition to the physical violence, the government arrested lawyers trying to file cases seeking redress and began an investigation to punish physicians and other caregivers who had given emergency medical care to injured demonstrators — shades of the Nazis’ prohibition on giving healthcare to Jews and others. The government also sent infiltrators who worked as doctors to the medical areas.
The Gezi Park demonstration was in many senses spontaneous but emerged in a democratic but more organized manner than the Occupy Wall Street. There were five core demands agreed upon by the many demonstrators: keep Gezi Park; the people responsible for the police violence should resign, tear gas should not be used any more, the people who had been detained should be released, and the human right to assemble (which had been forbidden for decades) should be respected. Nothing radical under normal standards, obviously; but still unacceptable to the government.
Unfortunately, the United States’ strong and more-or-less unconditional support for Prime Minister Erdogan over the past decade reinforces his sense that he can do anything he wants any way he wants, and many Turkish people see the same thing and view protests as hopeless because the United States is behind him. Besides being quite willing to destroy the environment (in addition to Gezi Park, his Bosphorus bridge project is destroying a vast forest tract along the Bosphorus, and his plan to build the largest mosque in Turkey will destroy a large hilltop park on the Asian side). His latest social policies include declaring that every woman should have at least three children and passing a law requiring that every positive blood test for pregnancy be reported to the Ministry of Health, which has begun notifying relatives of the women that they had had a positive test.
The Prime Minister, one of whose pet projects is the reconstruction of the Ottoman-era military barracks, initially referred to the demonstrators by “capulcu” — a highly insulting term meaning something like a cross between a looter, pillager and scum bag — and issued an ultimatum two days ago to clear Gezi Park. Then he met with a group of protesters and offered a limited set of pallid compromises, which the people in Gezi Park ultimately rejected. Reportedly, one of his “concessions” was to obey a court decision — which gives a good sense of how the government approaches the rule of law. The Magna Carta and Charter of the Forests should be joining the protests from their display cabinets.
The crackdown came Saturday night, with excessive violence, including the tear gassing of the medical tents and a hotel lobby in which volunteer physicians and nurses were aiding injured protesters and probably the use of skin-burning chemicals in the water cannons (this was alleged by the physicians association and one physician I spoke with reported treating three demonstrators injured by water cannons whose skin was burned). There was no differentiation between adults and children. Physicians assisting injured demonstrators in one hotel were arrested under the pretense of an anti-terrorist law. The lawyer from the local bar association who tried to assist the arrested physicians was physically prevented from doing so. Demonstrators who had been camping were prevented from taking their personal belongings such as cameras, cell phones and guitars by the police. In many senses this was a war against civilians.
Tens of thousands of people moved through the streets tonight to the demonstrators in the Park, only to be stopped by throngs of police. One of the two bridges across the Bosphorus was closed because supporters were marching from the Asian to the European side of Istanbul. The cross-Bosphorus ferries were also closed.
The demonstrators have been driven from the Park, the tents have been demolished and removed, the detainees are still incarcerated, the volunteer physicians and nurses are facing harassment and punishment, and lawyers are still being prevented from assisting human rights victims. But the spirit of Gezi Park, at least, will live on. Yasiyor!
Originally posted on June 17, 2013.