A Depressing Look Back on the Outcome of Gezi

Istanbul hit a milestone last night. At around 9 P.M., when two weeks earlier hundreds had paraded down my street banging pots and pans, only a single, solitary person protested against the regime of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It seems as though the protests that rocked Istanbul’s Gezi Park and public spaces around Turkey for the past 20 days are over. Attempts to revive them have been thwarted by the police occupation of Gezi and Taksim in the days following their brutal clearing on 15 July.

Though silent civil disobedience continues around the city, the bulk of Istanbul’s population is tired enough to go home, and those who remain have lost their common enemy.

Now seems as good a time as ever to take stock of what, if anything, they actually managed to accomplish.

The protests began as an environmental sit-in to prevent the construction of an Ottoman-style barracks museum/shopping centre in one of Istanbul’s last remaining green spaces. The government attempt to repress the protests in a typically excessive fashion spurred thousands to join.

By the end of the first week, the numbers had grown to their peak as Taksim, Gezi, Besiktas and the bridge to Asia were packed with hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of disenfranchised citizens, whose lists of grievances had expanded to include police brutality, media self-censorship, and the perceived religious authoritarianism of Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party.

So what has been accomplished? To begin with, Erdogan’s government has agreed to stall construction projects in Gezi Park, in compliance with a court order. They’ve also agreed to put the issue to a referendum, should their planned appeal succeed.

Though this may seem like the aim of the protests have been accomplished (it certainly does to Erdogan’s supporters), it is at best a partial victory.

Even though construction is halted, Gezi Park remains occupied by police and closed to the public. It is as good as a construction site for anyone but the police officers that brutally cleared it.

The adjacent Ataturk Cultural Centre (AKM), which many protesters did not want to see demolished, is outside of the scope of the court order, and will be destroyed to make way for a mosque and museum as planned, in opposition to the will of many Istanbullus.

Furthermore, the government has no plans to back down on their appeal in Turkey’s increasingly politicized courts, and protesters were already deeply skeptical of the idea of a referendum, which, they argue, could easily be geared to deliver a win for Erdogan.

Similarly environmentally destructive and politically contentious projects, like Istanbul’s second airport, third bridge (named for an ethnically cleansing sultan), and new canal project, are all scheduled to go ahead without local consultation, the personal pet projects of Erdogan and his party.

But making these protests about Gezi, or even environmentalism, is perhaps a little deceptive. It can’t be forgotten that the court order preventing construction was issued on May 31, well before the protests expanded and international media got wind of them. In the end, many were protesting not about Gezi, but about the brutality of the police response.

On this front, nothing has been accomplished. Police are in the process of ordering 100,000 new canisters of tear gas, having used 130,000 on protests. There is no initiative for the banning of tear gas or the firing of Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu, who was instrumental in the escalation of violence, or the investigation of police responsible for brutality. These were all protest demands, all of them ignored.

Numerous breaches of human rights, including arbitrary arrest, attacks on media and medical staff, detention without access to lawyers, and the deaths of four protesters, will go uninvestigated. Police continue to brutally suppress protests outside Istanbul with the same equipment used in Gezi, often in the same excessive quantity.

Concerning media censorship, the protests successfully claimed one media executive, Cem Ayin of NTV, who was fired shortly after apologizing to his reporters for ignoring the protests in their early days.

But Andalou Agency, Sabah Daily, Today’s Zaman, and countless other outlets continue to unabashedly support the government even during its most repressive activities. Several continue to publish outright lies or refuse coverage to alternative voices.

Most shockingly, the government has spent the days following the clearance of Gezi arresting journalists and performing raids on alternative media outlets that supported the protests. The government is also drafting new laws that will increase their power of censorship, targeting social media.

Even worse, Erdogan questioned the validity of press card, issued by his own office, in determining who can and who can’t be arbitrarily arrested for being at the site of protests. Over the last twenty days, scores of journalists were injured and detained and there is no sense that this will change. Turkey remains the world’s largest prison for journalists.

It is true that Erdogan is now a bit of an international pariah, especially in Europe, which now looks set to deny Turkey EU membership. But this can hardly be counted as a victory, given that it wasn’t protesters who did this  (who would probably benefit economically from EU membership), but Erdogan himself.

It’s Erdogan’s own EU minister who is threatening to cut all diplomatic ties, and it’s in Germany, whose large Turkish expat population would probably love easier immigration between the two nations, that the government is making an end to accession talks part of their political platform.

Though Erdogan’s reputation has been damaged abroad, it’s only galvanized his base, which loves to see him challenging international institutions and was only lukewarm on EU accession to begin with. And for a city like Istanbul, which thrives on foreign investment and tourism, the image of Erdogan as another Middle Eastern tinpot dictator is worse than a thousand Gezi projects.

So in the end, what was accomplished?

Perhaps it’s easier to ask what has been changed. Gezi will stay a park, hopefully. Turkey will not be an EU member, at least for another decade. And if there is any memory for these protests, Erdogan’s planned power-grab for the presidency will at least be a challenge in 2014.

In parliament, however, little has changed. The AKP still has legions of unquestioning supporters, now evidently increasingly prone to violence. His deputy PM, one of the few voices of conciliation during the protests, is rumoured to have resigned after a personal spat with Erdogan, evidence of his continuing stranglehold over the party.

As for the opposition, they have the same common enemy, the AKP, that they always did, and the same countless ineffectual parties to choose from. Efforts by protesters to turn the movement into one that can be expressed at the ballot box seem as hopeful and deluded as those that came from the Occupy movement.

The anger expressed in Gezi is not the sort that falls neatly into political parties. It is a broader anger at a system that seems to be exploited by whoever is in power, the collective sigh of the masses for politics representative of people, not parties.

It is the same anger seen in Brazil, in London, in New York. And it’s the same anger that never seems to result in any change. At least, not before the media rush on to the next one.

In other news:

• Occasional spats between the Turkish army and PKK continue along the border.

• The Kurds might not have a country, but thanks to Gibraltar, they may have a football team.

• Growing protests in Egypt challenge the authority of President Mohammed Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood. The hardcore Islamist Salafis are issuing some scary statements and planning counter-protests from 21 to 30 June, when the opposition is planning to hold a big rally/march on the president’s office. Revolution 2.0? If so, probably with more bloodshed. Expect clashes.

• The Prime Minister of the largely-useless-to-Palestinians Palestinian Authority resigned after two weeks on the job, citing a dispute over powers. Now President Mahmoud Abbas is saying he’ll prevent him resigning, and it’s all a mess. Meanwhile, the UN says Israelis used Palestinian children as human shields.

Turks stand around, Egypt gets offended, & more

Protesters face up police in complete, unmoving silence in Istanbul’s Taksim Square.

Supporters of June protests against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have changed tactics again.

Yesterday, hundreds of imitators of Taksim Square’s now famous “standing man” took to streets across the country in an act of passive resistance.

By remaining completely unmoving, staring at a fixed point, and making no sound, protesters are immune to arrests by the legions of armed police ringing Taksim Square and Istanbul’s historical districts.

In library-like silence (many of them reading), protesters stand for hours on end in silent opposition to the brutality of police tactics and the uncompromising government response to criticism.

Protesters form a hugging circle near historic Galatasaray High School, inviting passersby to join.

Across Besiktas district and on nearby Istiklal Avenue, one of Istanbul’s most iconic streets, small groups of protesters stages similar silent sit ins over hours, vowing to remain for days and months. Some carried signs declaring solidarity with anti-government protests in Brazil, which were met with similar police violence.

Similar protests took place across Turkey, including in Ankara, at the location where one protester was allegedly killed by police.

Today, the Turkish Doctors’ Union (TBB) released the number of injured and killed in the police actions over the weekend. According to TBB (whose estimates are usually higher than the media), 7,822 were injured (though this included “pepper gas-related [burn] and respiratory complications”), with 59 in serious or critical condition.

In addition, four protesters and one police officer were killed, one pregnant woman lost her baby during the gassing of Divan Hotel, and 11 lost eyesight.

A disturbing number of reports mention eye, brain, or facial injuries from rubber bullets aimed at the head, which can be lethal. Rubber bullets are intended to be ricocheted off pavement to minimize their impact. They were widely used in clashes with protesters before the clearance of Gezi.

Protesters read in silence on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue in solidarity with Brazil.

In the shadow of this news, Erdogan has vowed to “strengthen” the power of police forces against anti-government protests, which he has branded as the work of “internal traitors and external collaborators.” Quoted by Hurriyet, he said:

“Within the authority the law provides, from now on, our police will not overlook any lawlessness, will continue to fulfill its duty. We will further strengthen our police… in every way… so that we will increase the intervention power against these events…

It is their most inherent right… When you do not obey, the police use this authority.”

Following the PM’s lead, members of his party are suggesting the protests were planned for several months and represent the interest of a foreign-led “interest rate” conspiracy to undermine the AKP government.

Alarmingly, Erdogan is now directly blaming the main opposition party, the Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP), amid widespread arrests of political opponents connected to Gezi. More than 70 were detained on charges of supporting journalists, including journalists.

Arbitrary arrests are on the rise, and many detained over the weekend are still missing, having not been allowed to contact relatives or legal aid.

Personally frightening is that Erdogan has now questioned the legitimacy of Turkey’s yellow press cards, issued by the Prime Ministry to journalists, essentially giving himself carte blanche to arrest any critical members of the media (not that I have one of those anyway).

Police look bored in Gezi Park, watching the “standing man” protests. Gezi remains closed to the public.

Meanwhile, Erdogan’s personal spat with the European Union continues. The United Nations Secretary-General has issued a condemning statement, while the EU are considering suspending accession talks due to start next month. Turkey’s EU Minister earlier refused to meet an EU delegation, forcing them to postpone their visit.

In Germany, which has a large Turkish expat population, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have put the rejection of Turkey’s EU membership in their election platform.

A father brings his young daughter to the standing protests.

While hundreds imitate the standing man in their own form of silent protest, Gezi remains closed to the public which it was allegedly cleared to protect, occupied now not by protesters, but by bored police.

In Turkish news:

• The government continues work on its internet censorship bill, which Interior Minister Muammer Guler said would protect against the spread of “false news.” Given the rose-tinted falsity of news published by hilarious government outlet Andalou Agency and pro-government Sabah Daily (which believes the protests were caused by Turkey’s rich economic potential), one hopes their Twitter accounts would be the first targeted. Unfortunately, looking at the history of media laws in Turkey, it is much more likely to target anti-government news, false or otherwise.

• Turkey’s development plans may be threatening an entire endangered peoples in Northern Iraq, the Marsh Arabs. Global Post reports that Turkey’s plans to build several expansive hydroelectric dams on rivers that feed the marshes will probably be the final nail in the coffin of their way of life, unless they can convince the Turkish government not to build.

Elsewhere in the world:

• My least-favourite most-powerful country in the world, Qatar, is hosting talks between the US and the Taliban after the Americans apparently dropped condemnation of Al-Qaeda as a precondition for talks. The Taliban have demonstrated their good intentions by attacking Bagram airbase and killing four US soldiers.

• Egypt is seeing a record number of blasphemy cases filed by Salafi (hardcore, Saudi-style) Islamists, who are buddy-buddy with the government of President Mohammed Morsi. According to the New York Times, though blasphemy laws have occasionally been employed to protect Egypt’s Christian minority from hate speech by Salafi preachers, the vast majority are filed by Salafis against Christians, who were accused by one lawyer of a “systemic campaign” to insult Islam. Egypt is also experiencing Occupy-style protests in front of the Culture Ministry over the perceived Islamisation of their culture program by a government that once described ballet as “indecent.”

• Iran elected a moderate in this weekend’s elections, Hassan Rohani, by just over 50 per cent, far surpassing other candidates. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to ensure people continue to be scared of Iran, while Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said the election was “essentially meaningless” while simultaneously denying Iranian-Canadians the right to vote in it.

• Vladimir Putin has indicated he’d be comfortable with a post-Assad Syria just as sectarian violence in Lebanon escalates between pro-rebel Sunnis and pro-Assad Shiite Hezbollah, killing 4.

A water cannon from the Turkish Department of Anti-Terrorism waits in Taksim. Protesters were previously alarmed by the presence of federal forces at the protests.

Istanbul rests & gets arrested

Ankara on the night police cleared Gezi Park. Tensions have flared in Istanbul and across the country after police ended 20-day protests against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with shocking brutality.

The police seem to have won this round. Following dramatic and violent clashes two nights ago and the brutally violent clearance of Gezi Park Saturday evening, last night saw remarkably little action. Does this mean the protests are over?

Probably not. Thousands are still voicing their grievances about the government as pots and pans protests continue, and organizers are now looking for another spot to occupy. It seems Taksim is out of the realm of possibility. Police continue to occupy the square and park. Pedestrians can enter on foot, but those protesting are immediately detained following warnings from police, and bags are being searched on entry, arresting those carrying in what looks like protest gear. Police are also stationed in adjacent streets over a wide area, making it very difficult to approach the square.

Even despite this, Turkish performance artist Erdem Gündüz has invented a new form of protest, the “standing man”. Protesters are entering the square, stopping where they are searched and standing silently for hours, staring at the Turkish flags and portrait of Ataturk hung on the Ataturk Cultural Centre (AKM). Though Gündüz was eventually arrested, he has spawned eager imitators.

Politically, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has continued his broad and at times bizarre criticisms of opponents. He has criticised the EU for their lack of “respect for democracy,” arguing that Turkey and the EU have “different opinions on freedom” — something I think most will find it hard to argue with.

This aggression from Erdogan may seem like ill-timed hubris, given that his government have spent the past decade repeatedly bending over backwards for international institutions in an effort to secure EU membership. This latest spat may throw the whole process out the window, if the EU has a long enough memory.

More likely, however, is that, with election in November and membership unlikely for several years, Erdogan knows he is playing the long game internationally and the short game domestically. He can risk the EU bid for now to galvanize his base in time for the election, which loves the motif of plucky little Erdogan taking on the international institutions that have ravaged Turkey’s poor with austerity (instituted by the AKP, but who remembers that).

After winning the presidency, he’ll probably go back to kissing the feet of the EU, economically speaking, which in the end is all that ze Germans really care about so long as people aren’t getting gassed on CNN. A couple years of iron-fisted stability as president, and Turkey will be back on the EU watchlist.

The threat to utilize the army from Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc is met with skepticism by almost all the Turks I have spoken to. A section of the army, the gendarmerie, operates as a national police force and is under the control of the interior minister. It was this that shocked protesters after being deployed in some places, including Istanbul, to support flagging police.

Anonymous propaganda.

But the army army it is not. The gendarmes are armed with much the same equipment as your ordinary robocop, and without the proper army, controlled by the generals, it would be impossible to impose curfews or checkpoints that would be demanded by martial law.

To declare martial law would probably require significant support within the armed forces, not just among the top brass, and this, according to what I’ve read, the AKP does not have. So for now, it remains a scary possibility, if an implausible one.

The news:

• In ongoing revelations from the clearance of Gezi and subsequent clashes, videos and images show police aiming rubber bullets above ground (where they can be lethal), firing tear gas into hospitals, and beating protesters. Amnesty International reports detainees were being held in unknown locations without access to due process, and denied toilets, water, and food. Bianet reports 450 missing, still in detention but yet to be able to contact relatives or lawyers.

• It may have been all communist party flags that littered Taksim’s monument, but the top 1 per cent evidently doesn’t like the AKP any more than the communists do. The Ekonomist (with a “k”), a Turkish business magazine, interviewed more than 100 Turkish CEOs and found that almost half had personally visited the Gezi Park protests and 90 per cent supported the demands of protesters. I was at a very fancy dinner party yesterday and heard the story of a fabulously wealthy CEO leaving his six year-old daughter’s birthday party to join protesters during the worst of the fighting. Even at this fancy party, when 9 o’clock rolled around, everyone clanged their plates and glasses for a few minutes in a miniature pots and pans protest.

• The AKP government is drafting scary new laws that will restrict social media and prevent “crimes over the internet.” Erdogan and his party have at several points criticised social media for its powerful organizing capacity, accusing it of spreading lies and propaganda. Twitter has become famous both for being the target of government criticism during protests, and for being notoriously difficult to censor, as in the Egyptian revolution, when government attempts to shut down the internet were mitigated by ingenious efforts to record, transcribe, and translate Egyptian tweets over shaky cell phone connections. That might not work in Turkey, though — the government cell phone provider, Turkcell, has shut down communications in protest areas several times already.

My phone in Ankara during the protests.

• Greece and Brazil have seen similar, wide reaching anti-government protests this weekend. In Greece, protesters occupied the public broadcaster, threatened with closure under new austerity measures, and has kept it going until now, drawing support from European broadcasters. In Brazil, hundreds of thousands are taking to the street in a protest that began over a 10 cent raise in public transit, but has since become the largest protest Brazil has seen in 20 years. Grievances include the generally poor quality of services, economic nepotism (also a common grievance in Turkey), police brutality, and recent spending sprees on international sporting events (Rio is hosting the World Cup in 2014 and Olympics in 2016).  A friend told me an anecdote that in Sao Paolo, the centre of the protests, protesters were chanting, “This is Turkey now.”

• Fareed Zakaria at CNN has this terrible piece called “Why Turkey protests are a good thing,” in which he resorts to the cliches of referring to protests as a “culture war” and Turkey as an “immature democracy.” CNN hilariously eschewed live coverage of the protests on their Turkish affiliate while amping their coverage in the US media as a “Turkish Spring.” Now they’ve come under fire from Erdogan for mistakenly labeling aerial footage of Istanbul’s AKP rally as an anti-government protest. Don’t worry, Erdogan, it’s not an attempt to overthrow you, it’s just terrible journalism.

• For an excellent article on who the AKP support base is in Turkey, read this op-ed by Semih Idiz in Hurriyet. According to Idiz, many AKP supporters believe Erdogan will get a boost from having handled protests so well. Confused how this is possible? Read pro-government Sabah’s coverage.

The AKP rally in Ankara. Even the Turkish flag seems less important to properly hang than the portrait of Erdogan. Ataturk’s portrait was actually still half-folded, never opening enough to show the man’s (probably disapproving) face.

The weekend from Hell

UPDATE: Interior Minister Bulent Arinc has suggested for the first time that the Turkish army may be used to quell the protests. This is an important moment, as it would no doubt have to have followed on days of serious negotiations — the army is one of Erdogan’s biggest opponents (some even supported the protesters in early days) and is fiercely secular. Until now, Erdogan’s neutering of the political power of the army was thought to have ruled them out as a possible last resort, potentially explaining the brutality of police intervention. If the army does get involved, this will become very, very ugly.

It has been one hell of a weekend.

I headed to Ankara on Friday with the aim of covering ongoing clashes in the capital and an AKP rally scheduled for Sunday evening. The city of Ankara is a classic example of urban planning a la Erdogan — it is a city without a heart, a series of pockets and enclaves full of monolithic buildings, skyscraping apartment complexes (many still under construction), and shopping mall after shopping mall. There is no place like Taksim or Gezi — even the hub of Kizilay is surrounded by broad motorways, and was for most of the time I spent in downtown Ankara almost vacant.

This has had an effect on the nature of the protests. Unlike Gezi, where thousands joined in largely peaceful action, the protests in Ankara over the weeks preceding my visit were sporadic and dispersed clashes involving a few protesters hurling rocks and setting fires, and indiscriminate daytime gassing by police.

Perhaps, as my host put it, because there are so few large public spaces in Ankara, Prime Minister Erdogan’s rally was held far from the city centre — more than an hour’s transit — in the suburb of Sincan. Though the area is economically depressed, all the roads were recently resurfaced — on the day of our visit, some even still smelled like tar.

Thousands of people were brought in by municipal buses taken out of service for the purpose, filled with flag-waving supporters from across Ankara and the surrounding country. Erdogan’s speech — we could understand little of it at the actual event — was prophetically  militant. Two hours later, Gezi was cleared in one of the most brutal police actions of his government.

In Ankara, thousands took to the streets in protest, creating one of the most concentrated acts of defiance yet seen by the city. It has, after all, also seen its share of disproportionate, even shocking police aggression, including, just this weekend, an assault on a funeral procession for a protester killed by police.

Of all the warnings I got in Ankara, by far the most frequent was for being a journalist. Unlike in Istanbul, where international media is concentrated, journalists in Ankara continue to be the targets of assaults from police. Freelancers like myself are often arrested, detained, and sometimes beaten before they are released and deported.

This is perhaps another reason why the decision of Istanbul police to prevent media from covering the clearance of Gezi Park is so alarming. The media, both international and national, is now left relying on shaky second-hand reports, or else the frantic videos of those unlucky enough to be inside the police cordon.

In historical Sultanahmet, Erdogan again ratcheted up his rhetoric, calling protesters “terrorists”, “traitors”, and “foreigners” — it’s worth reading the quotes from this Hurriyet article for an idea of the level of obstinacy protesters face from this government. He continued his line of attack against the foreign media, international organizations, and the large body of opposition within his own country, accusing them of a cooperative effort to undermine the AKP. These are seriously dictatorial claims, approaching paranoia.

While hundreds of thousands were brought to this event by municipal ferries and buses taken off service to prevent protesters from entering Besiktas district, Istanbul was reeling from news of mothers losing their children, hotels and rescue centres gassed, and medics being gassed, arrested and detained (on charges of supporting a terror organization, a catch-all for protesters), violating numerous international conventions to which Turkey is signatory. The government continues to deny many of the claims, despite growing video evidence and testimony. The governor of Istanbul initially said only 24 were detained — this is now evidently false, with the Turkish Bar Association claiming more than 300. Thousands have been injured since the protests began.

The reaction to this news, and to the brazen swagger of Erdogan’s AKP rally in Istanbul, was to organize a counter-protest to retake Taksim Square. Thousands took the streets, but were unable to concentrate as police closed off and gassed all roads to the square. The entire urban centre of Istanbul was, at some points, under attack or otherwise occupied. Police blocked highways and sent water cannons and gas into crowds of people as far up as Sisli, on the edge of Istanbul’s urban core. Hurriyet reports an instance of supporter violence against the headquarters of the rival Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP).

Internationally, Turkey’s reputation may finally be suffering as much as Erdogan says it is. The EU is unlikely to grant accession after numerous criticisms, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel joining the fray. That is, if it truly cares six months down the road, which is doubtful.

Clashes are likely to continue tonight, with five unions now joining the protest. The Guardian mentions some grumblings within police, who have been bused from across Turkey to Istanbul, but for me these are unconvincing signals. No one is capable of stopping the police brutality but the protesters or the government. Given Erdogan’s paranoid statements in the face of expansive criticism, and the generally uncompromising stance of his supporters and police, I see no budge room there. Given that protesters are equally adamant and increasingly cornered and potentially violent, I think this will continue to escalate for a while.

If you’re looking for some entertainment in the meantime, read the updates from Andalou Agency, the government media outlet.

War in Besiktas

I’m watching Halk TV in a bar in Yeni Levent tonight, cut off from the protests that have seized most of Besiktas, Istanbul’s most dense urban district surrounding Taksim Square. This map, produced by protesters, gives a good idea of the spread of the protests — as thousands tried to retake Taksim and Gezi, police head them off in the adjacent streets. Exclamation points indicate a police presence — near Taksim, rubber bullets and water cannons have been used. Houses indicate buildings offering sanctuary and medical care to protesters.

In Ankara, protests have escalated, with violence against police in Kizilay and Kugulu Square. Police appear to be deploying in a manner similar to previous weeks, which have seen scattered clashes with a few protesters and police and indiscriminate gassing.

Throngs continue to circulate around Taksim, encountering police aggression along the way.

A short update, with more to come tomorrow. My internet access has failed at the worst time, unfortunately.

Gezi Falls

I’m fucking knackered and also 500 kilometers away in Ankara due to some ill-timed journalisticky travels, but this is a pretty important moment so here’s a roundup on the latest reports from Gezi Park:

Tonight, police seized and cleared Gezi Park in one of the most brutal police actions of the continued protest. Widespread reports mention young children and elderly gassed in Gezi Park and in the nearby Divan Hotel, which was used as a sanctuary for protesters fleeing police. Video and photos show police gassing the interior of the building.

There were numerous injuries. The governor of Istanbul has minimized this number, and also said provocateurs used weapons on police, injuring 2. Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bağış has said any gathering in Gezi are to be treated as terrorists. Protesters have vowed to bring millions to Taksim tomorrow in protest.

This comes at a very important time for the ruling AKP and the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The PM’s rhetoric escalated further tonight at the AKP rally — read this report for an example, I’m too tired to summarize it. Either way, his threat to protesters tonight, coupled with his scheduled pro-government rally in Istanbul tomorrow, and the follow-through on that threat with brutal police action, all indicates an unquestionably and increasingly authoritarian style.

In Ankara, thousands were brought on municipal buses commandeered for the purpose to fill a park in Sincan, an economically depressed suburb on the outskirts of Ankara. The mood in the park was mostly lukewarm, mostly families, with many leaving before the speech was over. Partisan networks put the number of participants in the millions; this is a gross exaggeration.

Sympathy protests in Ankara were met by police and given warnings, though clashes seemed unlikely as of 2 A.M.

The response to these police actions in Gezi, the ability of police to hold the park and square from counter-protests, and the continuing revelations about instances of disproportionate force will be very important for the opposition in the coming days. For AKP supporters, many will be watching pro-government channels tomorrow, which will undoubtedly eschew any coverage of Taksim, no matter how sizeable the protest, for coverage of the AKP rally — sure to draw thousands, even if they are bused in from as far as Izmir.

Gezi saved for another night, Syria goes all Syrian, and other news

Police move in to Taksim Square from the AKM parking lot.

Despite escalating rhetoric from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the late hours of June 13, the government has appeared to have taken a deep breath and stepped back on its previously harsh approach to the Gezi Park protests.

Erdogan’s initial threat to “clean” the park of “terrorists” never came to fruition — instead, his government called an 11th-hour meeting (literally) with actors and spokespeople for Taksim Platform.

(As a side note, Turkey has an odd habit of viewing actors who speak in support of political issues as actual experts on the issue. During the peace negotiations with the PKK, the government invited a large number of popular soap actors and singers to a “Wise People’s Commission” — though the panel also included academics, it seems odd to me to invite a bunch of actors as supposed voices of the people.)

Protesters seemed highly skeptical but pleased. I spent a marathon 17 hours down at Taksim and Gezi yesterday, hoping for something to happen, but instead saw a lot of people play football and watched over sleepy police. At around 2:30 A.M., police began a gradual withdrawal from the square, some to sleep in buses on the adjacent streets. The police watching German pianist Davide Martello’s all-night outdoor solidarity concert in Taksim Square seemed to relax, joking around with protesters.

In all, it was a night of welcome (albeit at times incredibly boring) deescalating tensions. Erdogan’s government began the night with a barrage of threats and virulent criticism of the EU, which had earlier criticized the government for its unwillingness to “take steps towards reconciliation.” But by the end of the night, AKP spokespeople stated that if a planned appeal fails, they will be bound by an earlier court decision suspending construction. They even suggested that should their appeal succeed, the issue will be put to a referendum, though the protesters I talked to remained highly skeptical of this.

Either way, despite the lack of sleep it inflicted upon me, the change in tone is a welcome one. Looking forward, I think it’s reasonable to anticipate at least one police operation in or around Gezi before the AKP supporter rally next week. It will also be interesting to see if the more radical among the protesters, who are beginning to enjoy the permanence of Gezi’s anarchic society, will be willing to leave even with this new tone of compromise.

The news for this thundering morning in Istanbul:

• One thousand Kurdish Iraqi soldiers have deserted the Iraqi army for peshmerga forces loyal to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The final straw was evidently an operation directed against Sunnis by the Shi’ite government, though this has been brewing for a long time. The withdrawal of Kurdish militants from Turkey to Northern Iraq has strengthened the KRG’s claims to autonomy. Earlier, they demanded the government renegotiate oil rights in the north, and threats have been being tossed back and forth ever since.

• The U.S. has agreed to provide direct military support to Syrian rebels, the New York Times reports, on the basis that chemical weapons have been used. Britain and France supplied the evidence to the E.U. earlier to bully them into making a similar decision. Most of these weapons will come via Turkey, which sees it at none too soon — Turkish troops just yesterday fired on a group of Syrian civilians trying to enter Turkey, and Turkey’s never been very good with refugees, which are a growing crisis. Despite the fact that this may help turn the tide for an opposition faced with losing its longest-standing stronghold, there are a litany of issues with supplying arms to Syrian rebels. Not least among them is that there is no identifiable single entity that can be called the Syrian opposition, according to expert on Syrian opposition groups Aaron Lund, despite the best efforts of the Syrian National Council (SNC) from Diyarbakir, Turkey. Many groups currently doing the best work against the government are also of the violent, jihadi, al-Qaeda-linked type that the U.S. should have learned their lesson about supporting with advanced weaponry.

• Five were detained in ongoing clashes with police in the capital of Ankara, where I am finally for realsies headed. The protests in Ankara have been subject to gassing from police for the past five days in a row, and they have no sign of stopping in advance of the AKP supporter rally there on the 15th.

• The government is beginning to suggest they will take legal action against Twitter for its role in “encouraging” the protests. Twitter, unlike Facebook and YouTube, is not required to open a Turkish subsidiary that complies with government censorship, and refuses to do so due to the lack of protections on personal information in Turkey. Given that Twitter was the only company to refuse to negotiate with the US government in their unprecedented cyber-spying PRISM program, it seems unlikely they will make this one easy for the AKP.

• Erdogan continues to lash out at the “interest rate conspiracy” (and suggesting Israel?), despite evidently no one knowing what that means.

• New restrictive liquor laws signed off on by President Abdullah Gul have had little effect on Istanbul vendors, who continue to sell late into the night. However, Efes Pilsen, one of Turkey’s (and the world’s) largest beer companies, has been forced to pull its Turkish website in compliance with the new law. It remains to be seen how some of the advertising laws can be enforced — there’s a basketball team in Istanbul that is literally called the “Andalou Efes”.

• The controversy over shit coverage of the protests has claimed one media exec, Cem Aydın of NTV’s Doğuş Media. He was the only media person to apologize to staff over the coverage. In Gezi, Halk TV, which aired the protests live from the beginning, is now sacrosanct.

• It’s election day in Iran, but you won’t hear much about it, because of intense media restrictions. There’s a “blanket ban” on UK outlets.

Taksim Square returns to “normal”, media goes quiet, and other news

I published two articles today, one on Classless Magazine and another on Your Middle East. Classless has most of my photos.

According to reports from the Guardian and Hurriyet, Taksim Square has now been cleared of protesters, returning it to its normal state of being occupied by hundreds of police. Gassing and fighting with protesters on adjacent Recep Pasa Avenue continued long into the night. It’s hard now, from my home in Yeni Levent, to figure out what is going on in Taksim, as the local media has gone suspiciously and ominously quiet.

But news continues to come in from last night, including images of a wheelchair-bound protester being hit by a water cannon, and allegations that the molotov-throwing protester of yesterday morning were undercover police officers. I’m not sure how plausible that is, especially given that protesters demonstrated their willingness to resort to violence (I saw one protester making off with an undetonated tear gas grenade, covertly showing it off to his friends), but I did catch this picture of plainclothes officers on the scene.

Though it’s not evidence of police involvement in the actions of protesters (I think the union would probably have something to say about allowing molotov cocktails to be used against their own officers), it does show that they were mingling in the protest for a large part of yesterday.

The violence of yesterday provided a lot of fodder for staunch opponents on either side. Police can now say with authority that much of their brutality is in self-defense, however dubiously, as protesters hurled rocks, bottles, and fireworks, and even set fire to a TOMA crowd control tank. Protesters can point to the brutality of the police repression, which used hundreds of canisters of tear gas (and also most definitely rubber bullets, however “unsure” the Turkish media may be) and resulted in hundreds of injuries.

It’s a tenuous position for the protesters now. Erdogan has demonstrated that without EU officials in the country, he will ruthlessly put down protests he continues to see as illegitimate, not just in Istanbul but across the country. Uncompromising phrases are issuing from the mouths of his government’s spokespeople and Istanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu.

Many of the protesters’ worst fears about yesterdays intervention, ostensibly to “remove banners”, were true. The government was lying about their intentions — they sought to retake Taksim Square fully and reestablish control of Istanbul’s public space, leaving the easily controlled (although difficult to clear) Gezi Park to the protesters. A scheduled meeting between Erdogan and an 11-member negotiating team from Taksim Platform is unlikely to result in anything — Erdogan has already demonstrated and repeatedly stated that he is not willing to compromise in any way.

Despite stressing repeatedly that Turkey is a democratic country in his criticisms of the foreign media, Erdogan has clamped down hard on criticism, arresting lawyers and Twitter users and fining media that do cover the protests for “harming the development of children”.

For the past week has wildly lashed out at any and all who question his actions, including bank CEOs, opposition parties, and, of course, the media, alleging they are under the control of foreign powers. One Guardian columnist has drawn comparisons to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he’s not far off the mark, considering Erdogan plans a similar constitutional power grab with his candidacy for the presidency in 2014.

Istanbul’s AKP supporter rally is scheduled for the 19th. Personally, I think Erdogan is hoping to have the protests completely cleared by then. That gives police a little over a week. We’ll see what happens.

In other news on this quiet, rainy day in Istanbul:

• In disturbing news, defense contractors have viewed the police crackdown in Taksim with dollar signs ringing in their eyes. Several sources speaking to Hurriyet have said they see a good opportunity to sell new, powerful technology to Erdogan’s government, anticipating continuing unrest.

• Protests in Ankara resulted in clashes between police and protesters for the fourth day in a row, marking a trend of harsh repression in the capital. I’m headed there this week…

• In Iran, presidential elections are this Friday, and in good news for the West, the conservative vote is heavily divided while moderates have rallied behind reformist candidate Mohammed Khatami. Important conservative blocs are trying to convince some of the candidates to leave the field to give one of them a better chance.

• Lebanon’s political problems may result in an economic collapse, writes the Daily Star. This would add too their ongoing problems of sectarian violence and a chronic refugee problem from neighbouring Syria. Some commentators have earlier stated that Lebanon could be headed for another civil war.

• Morocco is both in a political deadlock and out of the news. This good post on the New York Times’ Latitude Blog from Ursula Lindsay, the intern at the Arabist, gives a good rundown of the political situation there, which has seen power concentrated in the hands of the king.

Also, these are my souvenirs from Taksim — two tear gas canisters from Homer City, PA’s “NonLethal Technologies”. My girlfriend wants to turn them into flowerpots.

A Battle for Taksim (PHOTOS)

A protester returns a tear gas canister in Taksim Square.

I was gassed five times today during my sunny afternoon in Taksim Square, and also got a really bad sunburn. I can’t decide which is worse.

Taksim degenerated to an all-out war between protester-ultras, the hardcore angry youths with covered faces and Besiktas JK jerseys, and armies of police — locally called “robocops”. What was a quiet morning of molotov cocktails and TOMA tanks relaxed into a comfortable game of capture the flag — by the time I left, burnt to a crisp and thoroughly gassed, it was only the pepper spray, rocks, and water cannons causing all the havoc.

I got tear gassed.

A protester demonstrates his own futility. The sign reads, “Prohibit the use of gas bombs.”

A man fires a slingshot at police. They fire tear gas back.

As of now, VICE has a live stream up of Taksim Square and Gezi Park. If you look in the corner, you can see Recep Pasa Avenue, the sight of the worst of the battle today. There teenaged protesters burned vehicles and construction materials to create a thick smoke screen while the built and rebuilt broken barricades.

When police tried to open another front, supporters rushed to the street to beat back police and toss back tear gas canisters, to the sound of war drums from up on Gezi Park’s western escarpment.

In times like this, Gezi Park operates like a well-oiled machine. When I made the mistake of coughing after taking the choice shot at the top of this article, I almost immediately fell over in pain and blindness. But some nearby voices called me over and poured a lemony milk mixture, sacred to the protesters here, gave me some water and patted me on the back. Around me, dozens of other gas-mask-wearing officials did the same — a free service in an anti-capitalist world.

Emergency aid in Gezi Park.

Robocop.

Hardcore protesters throw rocks from behind cover.

When the gassing got worse, men in full hazmat suits with weed sprayers full of the stuff doused entire crowds of rock-throwing ultras on the escarpment as police let loose dozens and dozens of canisters on the protest.

Despite earlier claiming that Gezi Park was off limits, the actions of the ultras — who, though still representative of a small number of Gezi’s more than 10,000 occupants, showed their full force today (I counted more than 200 on the escarpment alone, another 150 on Recep Pasa at least) — forced police to gas their way in just a little bit, before quickly withdrawing.

When clashes first broke out early on, Taksim was a complete chaos of young men armed with slingshots and fireworks against water cannons and battalions of police with tear gas. I saw one police officer get badly injured, and counted at least six wounded protesters (Hurriyet, talking to medical staff, put the number from today in the “hundreds”, with five critical).

An officer gets badly injured by a stone.

Ninja communists and stoners. Not the friendly kind.

He’s not holding shit.

The operation began ostensibly as one to remove banners on Taksim’s Ataturk Culture Centre (AKM) and monument to Kemal Ataturk. Besides these being public property, why this (and not the thousands of protesters illegally camping all around the place) would be a priority isn’t clear.

To me the operation was a win-win situation for a hardline government, especially one that wants to end the days of barricades and push protesters out of the way of business and into a controllable and concentrated area, in Gezi Park. In the unlikely event that protesters don’t resist, political radicals and opposition parties don’t get to brand the most popular resistance in Turkish history with their own (albeit ineffectual) brand.

In the much more likely event that they do resist, Taksim gets a show of the jackboot and a whiff of tear gas that has been sorely missed during Erdogan’s four-day trip to North Africa. Protesters end up boxed in in a park that can easily be cleared in another full-day operation, though it would likely require even more excessive brutality.

Erdogan maintained a hard line in statements today and yesterday, asking protesters to clear the streets, and protesters used molotov cocktails on police and the violence of today will do little to help the protest’s cause. The actions of what the government is calling “marginal groups” makes it much easier to treat the whole protest with violence.

The barrier on Recep Pasa Avenue. Before they drove the truck onto it (my battery died).

For my part, I was absolutely knackered and gassed half to death, so I came home with some souvenir empty gas canisters and my sunburn. But Taksim still rages on, and the “tug-of-war” between rock-throwers and gas-throwers continues. Governor Mutlu of Istanbul has just said that the operations are to continue “day and night” until the square is cleared…

At least those pesky banners are gone, though, right?

Links and news for today:

• More than 50 lawyers have been arrested for protesting against the government. Lawyers protesting lawyers being arrested have also been arrested. In the words of my girlfriend, lawyers everywhere are asking for the right to speak to themselves.

• Your Middle East has a good primer on the protests, diffusing some all-to-easy lines of attack against Erdogan. You may think he is a right old bastard, but he is a democratically elected one — that means this is no Tahrir Square.

• Erdogan is continuing his bizarre assault on foreign banks, threatening to “choke” the leaders of the broad interest rate conspiracy he believes is seeking to destroy the Turkish economy to oust him from power. This line of attack began when the CEO of one of Turkey’s biggest foreign-owned banks called himself a “marauder” or capulcu (pron. cha-PULL-choo) — the unofficial name for protesters, stolen from one of Erdogan’s speeches. The Guardian certainly thinks he has an idea — they think the falling Lira may do more damage to Erdogan than the protests have.

• The AKP “vice chairman of media and public relations responsible for social media” has said that he thinks Twitter is more deadly than car bombs and is a vehicle for lies and conspiracy intended to topple the government. There are rumours now emerging of new legislation to censor Twitter, following on the now two year-old censorship of internet pornography.

• Copy editors afraid of typos have largely ignored protests in not-at-all-nearby-Gezi Gazi, a district of faraway Sultanbey in Asian Istanbul. The working class Alevi neighbourhood has had fiery clashes with police over the past week. Erdogan was widely criticized for naming a controversial third bridge project for a sultan who murdered thousands of Alevis.

• President Abdullah Gul has approved a controversial new liquor law that restricts sales to between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M. and forbids new licenses within 100 metres of a school or mosque, ruling out much of urban Istanbul.

• Germany may be taking on 10,000 Syrian refugees following a deal with the U.N. Refugees from Syria are becoming a real problem and are only increasing in number now that the government is turning the tide of the war. In nearby Lebanon, their presence is one contributing factor to tensions that may possibly result in civil war; in Turkey, Syrian refugees are the object of much hate and are poorly treated in refugee camps, which can be so bad that refugees actually return to Syria. (They are also periodically tear gassed.)

There’s more but I’m tired!

Erdogan takes a hard line while protests continue

“Tree shadows do not stop capitalism” spray painted on the French Consulate, adjacent to Taksim Square.

Last night, Taksim Square was the site of one of its biggest rallies yet, as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to Ankara sounding his usual defiant tone.

Though Taksim remains the “utopic freetown” of several days ago, sympathy protests in Ankara were gassed by police for a second day in a row. Disturbing allegations of police brutality, including an account of a police officer threatening one female detainee with rape, are now emerging. The Turkish media, still eager to please the government, remains in a cycle of narcissistic self-criticism and coverage of Erdogan’s speeches, instead relegating these allegations to their sex blog, presumably in the hopes they will escape litigation.

On the other side of the equation, six police have committed suicide since the protests began, according to the police union, facing brutal working conditions and general hatred from the populace. Many police are being drafted in to the centres of protest from far away towns and are removed from their families, forced to sleep on public benches and work long hours. Though sympathy for police is understandably difficult amid reports of such brutality, it probably does not help their sense of proportion and justice to be routinely exhausted and isolated.

Though other members of Erdogan’s government, including Istanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu and Deputy PM Bulent Arinc have made conciliatory motions towards protesters (in the former’s case, even expressing a desire to be with them), Erdogan himself remains stubbornly defiant. Taking ownership of the police, he declared in a speech from conservative Ankara: “There are those who side with those swearing against the prime minister of this country. We are going to show patience, but patience has a limit as well.”

Continuing to lash out at other opponents, and wildly criticize abstract bodies of opposition including an alleged “interest rate lobby”, Erdogan added, “The moment we discover stock exchange speculation, we will ram it down your throat.”

These increasingly violent and defiant tones from the prime minister are all the more alarming as the AKP prepares for counter-protests scheduled in Ankara and Istanbul. Amid reports of supporter violence, there is a potential for this to grow ugly as the AKP attempts to galvanize opposition to the protests into a single bloc.

Meanwhile, foreign media outlets appear to be showing considerable sympathy with the protesters, who have escaped stereotyping as young, secular, and anti-religious. “Anti-capitalist Muslims,” now a considerable bloc within the protests, have attracted media attention as a symbol of the wide-reaching criticisms of the AKP represented in Gezi.

Two Ottoman-era houses in Sultanhamet. One needs a bit of TLC.

Though the protests began as an attempt to prevent the redevelopment of Istanbul’s historic square into what one article called an “neo-Ottoman theme park,” the brutality of the police response has created sympathy among opponents of the AKP’s religious and economic conservativism.

Despite ongoing protests, Erdogan still maintains he will redevelop the park. In the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman argues the importance of the project for Erdogan is the sanitization and Islamification of the public square, long a disorganized and yet harmonious whole, eschewing class and political distinction. Erdogan’s efforts to build a new, sizeable mosque and reconstruct an Ottoman-era building, he writes, are part of an effort to return Taksim to a pre-Republican past, a project dear to Erdogan’s religious sensibilities — the Ottoman period less unforgivably secular than Ataturk’s republic.

(It also seems Erdogan has little respect for the national hero of secular Turks, having called him a drunk in discussions over his proposed new liquor restrictions, much to the ire of Ataturk’s Kemalist fan clubs. Erdogan has previously stated that anyone drinking more than a few drinks a year is an alcoholic.)

This pro-development, Ottoman-revival attitude is not just limited to Gezi — as reported today, reconstructing a residence of the Sheikh al-Islam in a university’s botanical garden is also a pet project of Erdogan’s.

Amid continuing EU pressure and rumours of early elections, Erdogan is coming under increasing pressure to do something, anything, to indicate he is willing to compromise. However, as several commentators pointed out when the protests first began, this has become an issue of hubris, and Erdogan now risks losing his sway over his bloc of loyal supporters if he indicates any desire to be a Prime Minister for the other 49 percent.

More news:

• EU criticism of Erdogan’s reponse to the protests remains heavy on police brutality and public censorship, but suspiciously light on media censorship. It seems the EU thinks Twitter is more important than a newspaper or television station able to broadcast criticism of government, but maybe that’s just because it’s doing more to undermine Erdogan’s government right now. Either way, for shame, EU, for shame.

• A good article in the Economist points out something many commentators have missed in their criticisms of Erdogan — that he is preparing a bid to become Turkey’s first popularly elected president, while simultaneously expanding the power of the post to dissolve parliament and appoint the cabinet. If you think Erdogan is acting like an autocrat now, the enhanced powers of the presidency would certainly make him more immune to parliamentary criticism. If criticism continues to grow, writes the Economist, current President Abdullah Gul might be encouraged to run again — and may win the support of Turkey’s powerful Gulen movement to do it. Meanwhile, the party rank and file, not immune from the fallout, is concerned Gezi Park may end their majority in the November election.

• The tourism and spirits industry has criticized proposed new liquor restrictions ahead of their final drafting, saying they were not consulted. The restrictions, which disallow sales between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. and forbid alcohol within 100m of a school or mosque (which affects most of crowded urban Besiktas) have been widely criticized, leading some within the protests to ironically call it the “alcoholics” movement.

• An ongoing controversy about whether protesters fleeing police and receiving medical care in a local mosque wore shoes and drank beer is getting a lot of media attention, not least because it trades on the idea that the protests are predominantly anti-religious. Despite the fact that the imam of the mosque denied the claims several times, Erdogan maintains this affront to Islam is indicative of the overall mood of the protest.

• In neighbouring Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has visited Iraqi Kurdistan in a bid to ease rising tensions, which have increased since militants from Turkey began their withdrawal into the area last month. Longstanding disputes over oil resources have led to threats of “renegotiation” of the relationship between the two governments.

• The situation in nearby Lebanon is deteriorating as Hezbollah gets more tangled up in the Syrian conflict. Your Middle East has an excellent piece on the sectarian troubles of Lebanon and why another civil war may be immanent.

• Meanwhile, the Syrian army is gearing up to take the longtime rebel stronghold of Aleppo, according to the Daily Star. A victory here, with the assistance of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, could turn the tide of the civil war, just as allegations of chemical warfare and ethnic cleansing are pushing Western nations to intervene on behalf of the rebels.