Local and Global Community News – Activism / Protests - Animal Advocacy - Animal Rescue- Archaeology/Anthropology/Paleontology/Crypto-zoology , Corporate Assault on our Lives and Our Health, Environmental- Internet/IT - Signs of the Times – Wildlife : News Affiliate of Family Survival Protocol.com
Turkish
riot police use water cannon to disperse protesters during an
anti-government protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, July 6,
2013.
By Humeyra Pamuk and Ece Toksabay, Reuters
Turkish
police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of
protesters in an Istanbul square on Saturday as they gathered to enter a
park that was the center of protests against Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan last month.
The Taksim Solidarity Platform, combining an
array of political groups, had called a march to enter the sealed off
Gezi park, but the governor of Istanbul warned that any such gathering
would be confronted by the police.
Riot police chased protesters
into side streets in what appeared to be the biggest police intervention
since the mid-June protests and riots that saw Taksim Square sealed off
by makeshift barriers.
"We are here today to claim our park back. It was supposed to be open
tonight. They (authorities) called us occupiers, but the park has been
occupied by the state for weeks now," said 41-year-old web designer Asim
Elci.
Protesters chanted "Together against fascism" and "Everywhere is resistance."
Witnesses said that police detained a few protesters, but many remained
in side streets in the Taksim area at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, including
youths and women, some in gas masks.
Published time: June 13, 2013 13:13 Edited time: June 14, 2013 16:43
Media
takes images of a protester holding a flag in front of a riot police
vehicle during a protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul (Reuters / Osman
Orsal)
Turkey’s
TV watchdog fined four TV channels over their live coverage of the Gezi
Park protests in Istanbul, citing that the broadcasts were "harming the
physical, moral and mental development of children and young people."
The Radio and Television Supreme Council fined private channels including Halk TV, Ulusal TV, Cem TV and EM TV.
Halk TV has gained local popularity because of their 24-hour live coverage of protests in Turkey, as most of the mainstream media have been slammed for their lack of reporting on the protests in the country.
As the unrest unfolded almost two weeks ago, mainstream Turkish media did not cover the violent police clashes, but instead broadcast nature and history documentaries, and cooking shows.
Many
of the other local networks briefly mentioned the protests, but failed
to cover the violent clashes in which scores were injured.
Angered protesters had to turn to the internet, especially Twitter, to get the information out.
In
response, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan condemned social
media’s role in the riots, singling out what he called the “scourge” of
Twitter. “There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said in the beginning of June.
Most
recently two Canadian journalists were arrested by police on Wednesday
while covering the ongoing protests in Istanbul's Taksim Square. The two
had been held all day and later released.
Protesters Skeptical as Turkish PM Flips From Threats to Concessions
Turkey’s
embattled PM Recep Tayyip Erdoganis told protesters last night that he
will halt plans to redevelop Gezi Park until Turkish courts rule on an
appeal and launch a public referendum if the rule falls in the
government’s favor.
(Photo: Joshua Kahn Russell/Monument at Taksim Square) The move comes a day after European parliament voted to condemn the PM’s violent crackdown on Turkey’s ballooning protests that has left five dead and over 5,000 injured.
Erdogan’s Wednesday threats
to shut down the protests in 24 hours were followed by late-night
private meetings Thursday with members of the Taksim Solidarity, one
organization behind the Taksim Square protests that has gained
heightened visibility.
Just outside of the Thursday meetings, police fought back protesters. PressTVreports:
Witnesses
said police fired tear gas at some 200 protesters who had gathered in
Ankara city centre, near the offices of the prime minister, while the
meeting was underway. Five demonstrators were also arrested.
The
PM’s gesture towards concession appeared an attempt to quiet Turkey’s
mass mobilizations, now well into their third week, as the U.S.-backed
head of government faces a growing political crisis.
Taksim
Solidarity members who attended the private meeting declared that the
question of whether to accept the PM’s latest move ultimately rests with
protesters, many of whom are not affiliated with Taksim Solidarity. CBSreports:
Protesters at the
entrance to Gezi Park, which Istanbul's governor has ordered them to
clear for their own safety. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
Turkey's
prime minister defied a growing wave of international criticism on
Wednesday and issued a chilling warning to the protesters who have
captured central Istanbul for a fortnight, declaring that the
demonstrations against his rule would be over within 24 hours.
Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan's ultimatum, which he said was conveyed to his police
chief and interior minister, ratcheted up the tension in Turkey after a
relatively calm day following the mass teargas attacks by riot police in Istanbul city centre on Tuesday evening.
"We
have not responded to punches with punches. From now on security forces
will respond differently," Erdoğan said after meeting a team said to be
representing the protesters for the first time. "This issue will be
over in 24 hours."
The sense of a looming denouement at Gezi Park
off Taksim Square in central Istanbul was reinforced when a deputy
leader of Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) said the
park had to be cleared of demonstrators as soon as possible.
Thousands of protesters again gathered at the park yesterday, with phalanxes of riot police marshalling nearby.
The
ruling party's deputy chairman and government Hüseyin Çelik added that a
city-wide referendum could be held on the initial issue that sparked
the wave of national protest – whether the park should be demolished to make way for a shopping mall and a replica of an old military barracks.
The
belligerent statement, contrasting with more conciliatory language from
President Abdullah Gül, who urged dialogue with legitimate peaceful
protesters, the vast majority of the tens of thousands who have taken to
the streets over the past two weeks.
The sense of a final
showdown was reinforced by Istanbul's governor, Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, who
ordered the protesters to clear the park for their own "safety".
"Families should take their children out of there," he warned.
Turkish government open to referendum to end protests
Protesters sleep on a bench at the Gezi Park in Istanbul, Turkey. Riot
police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets in day-long
clashes that lasted into the early hours Wednesday. Photo: AP
Despite the offer, protesters continued to converge on Istanbul’s
Taksim Square, the epicentre of repeated clashes between riot police
firing tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets.
Turkey’s government on Wednesday offered a first concrete gesture aimed
at ending nearly two weeks of street protests, proposing a referendum on
a development project in Istanbul that triggered demonstrations that
have become the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s 10-year tenure.
Despite the offer, protesters continued to converge on Istanbul’s Taksim
Square, the epicentre of repeated clashes between riot police firing
tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, and stone-throwing youths
for 13 days an early sign that the proposal hadn’t defused the
demonstrators’ concerns.
Word of such a referendum came after Mr. Erdogan hosted talks with a
small group of activists. Many civil society groups behind the protests
boycotted those talks in the capital, Ankara, saying they weren’t
invited and that the attendees didn’t represent them.
The discussion was the first sign that Mr. Erdogan was looking for an
exit from the showdown, and came hours after some European leaders
expressed concern about strong-arm Turkish police tactics and hopes that
the prime minister would soften his stance.
The headscarfed mother, infant attacked by Gezi Park protestors
A report has been published about the mother who was attacked
by a mob of Gezi Park protestors for wearing a headscarf. Both mother
and infant suffered physical injury.
World Bulletin/News Desk
The Taksim Gezi protests, which began with a small group with
environmental concerns, have turned into nation-wide protests which have
resulted in groups violently attacking people throughout Turkey.
The efforts by the secularist-nationalist fronts, which have provided
direct support to the protests, to provoke the crowds and polarize
society have reached an appalling scale. One mortifying case has been
the attack on the daughter-in-law of an AK Party mayor of a township in
Istanbul as she was walking with her 6 month old baby.
Suffering from trauma, the mother whose entire body is bruised has been unable to nurse her infant since the attack.
Police use rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds, sparking fresh fierce clashes with activists.
Video: Police move past barricades into Taksim Square, Istanbul
Enlarge Email
Riot police have stormed through barricades to clear Istanbul's main square prompting fresh clashes with anti-government protesters.
The big push by hundreds of officers at 9am local time forced many thousands of protesters, who had occupied Taksim Square for more than a week, to flee the area.
Diggers mowed down barricades as police used rubber bullets, water cannon, tear gas and stun grenades to disperse crowds, as activists hit back with petrol bombs, fireworks and stones.
Police use tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators
Protesters ran into Gezi Park where many had been camping - and where the demonstration first started on May 31 as a protest against the planned redevelopment of the green space into a shopping centre.
A violent police crackdown then on the protest has turned what started off as a single peaceful demonstration into a national uprising against the Islamist-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that is seen by many as authoritarian.
Sky's Katie Stallard, in Taksim Square, said: "Protesters have set fire to their barricades. They have been throwing rocks at police and we have seen petrol bombs being thrown.
"What some of the protesters are doing is they are trying to grab canisters of gas and throw them back into the police lines.
The police say they are removing banners, barricades. They say that if the protesters leave them to do that they won't touch them.
"But what is happening is people are coming out from the park and also the surrounding streets in numbers to try to get towards the police lines.
"Once the protesters stop and move back, the police stop too.
"In Gezi Park, protesters are chanting their defiant slogans again, while outside police are clearing sections of Taksim Square.
"The majority of them are there in the central camp and sitting down and trying to keep calm.
"I spoke to one mother yesterday who was determined that they would stay in the park until the end of this operation."
Demonstrators had earlier manned the barricades and prepared for a possible intervention when officers began massing in the area and replaced activists' banners with a large Turkish flag and a poster of Mustafa Kemel Ataturk, founder of the republic.
By Associated Press, Published: June 10 | Updated: Tuesday, June 11, 4:20 PM
ISTANBUL — Hundreds of riot police overran improvised barricades at Istanbul’s Taksim Square on Tuesday, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons in running battles with protesters who have been occupying the area for more than a week.The police raid, which came on the 12th day of nationwide anti-government protests, sparked clashes with groups of demonstrators well into the afternoon. Many other protesters fled into the adjacent Gezi Park, where hundreds have been camping out to stop developers from cutting down trees in the park.
As police moved in, bulldozers began demolishing the barricades and the makeshift shelters.A peaceful demonstration against the park’s redevelopment has morphed into a test of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authority and a rejection of what some see as his autocratic ways.
Erdogan, however, made it clear Tuesday that he had come to the end of his patience with the protesters, whom he accused of sullying Turkey’s image abroad.
“To those who ... are at Taksim and elsewhere taking part in the demonstrations with sincere feelings, I call on you to leave those places and to end these incidents, and I send you my love. But for those who want to continue with the incidents I say: ‘It’s over.’ As of now we have no tolerance for them,” Erdogan said, speaking in the capital, Ankara, as the raid was taking place.
“Not only will we end the actions, we will be at the necks of the provocateurs and terrorists, and no one will get away with it,” he added.
The unrest — which has spread to 78 cities across Turkey — has been inspired in part by what some see as Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian style of governing and his perceived attempts to impose a religious and conservative lifestyle in a country with secular laws.
Erdogan, a devout Muslim, says he is committed to Turkey’s secular laws and denies charges of autocracy. Yet as he defended his tough stance, he gave critics little hope of a shift in his position.
“Were we supposed to kneel before them and say please remove your pieces of rags? They can call me harsh, but this Tayyip Erdogan won’t change,” he said.
Erdogan was referring to the banners and posters that activists had hung from a building and a monument at Taksim Square, which police removed.
Erdogan spoke before a meeting with President Abdullah Gul to discuss the protests, their first since they erupted. Contrary to Erdogan, Gul has defended people’s rights to express democratic rights.
By afternoon, the clashes had extended to the very edge of Gezi Park, with acrid tear gas covering its sides, even though authorities had promised not to go into the park. Several people were rushed on stretchers to a first aid station manned by protesters before being taken to ambulances. Others were carried, overcome by tear gas.
Selin Akuner, a volunteer at a makeshift infirmary at the park, said some 300 people had sought treatment, mostly for the effects of tear gas. Nearly 50 people had been hit by rubber bullets or gas canisters, 12 had head traumas and about eight had injured legs or arms, she said. The governor’s office said one demonstrator and one police officer were hospitalized. Read Full Article and See Additional Photos Here***********************************************************
