Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

[SAT]

Day four of the protest.

The protesters are demanding that the square’s park, Gezi, be protected. Many also aired grievances against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government which has been displaying increasingly authoritarian and uncompromising tendencies in its third successive term in office.

Last week, the government enacted a law restricting the sale and advertising of alcohol which has alarmed secular Turks who fear an encroachment on more liberal lifestyles.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/turkish...-park-protest/

I guess the question is...Which would Satan prefer in what he sees as his kingdom? A kingdom were sexual sins etc etc are forbidden or a kingdom that is liberal?

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Turkish police tear gas anti-government protesters

"We do not have a government, we have Tayyip Erdogan...Even AK Party supporters are saying they have lost their mind, they are not listening to us," said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Bosphorus University who attended the protest. "This is the beginning of a summer of discontent."

http://news.yahoo.com/police-tear-ga...112451888.html


Tayyip Erdogan is being pushed off the fence of trying to have it both ways; joining the elite and trying to hang on to Islam values.


Note...

a political scientist at Bosphorus University

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Turkish police retreat from central Istanbul square as more protesters pour in

After heavy-handed police action left hundreds injured, opposition to park demolition has spiraled into anti-Erdogan ‘Turkish Spring’ activism

http://www.timesofisrael.com/turkish...sters-pour-in/

[Guest]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Our daughter, as I have mentioned before, is teaching at MIAM University, in Istanbul and visited the park, where the protests took place. We are warning her against this but she gets caught up in these kinds of things. Anyway, she said the violence against the protesters is bad and the local media is not reporting it. She is beginning to realize that the government is far from being a democracy!

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Hi John

Saying a prayer for your daughter.

Most of the media seem to be reporting that although Turkey is a democracy they are afraid Tayyip Erdogan is becoming more conservative and authoritarian.
He was a radical before he was elected so I suspect they have something to worry about.
The military has been the guardian of secularism and democracy in Turkey but they have been pushed around and had their authority questioned lately under Tayyip Erdogan. Do they still have that foundational belief in the military???? Who knows as they have so far been quiet.
Tayyip Erdogan is getting a lot of criticism from political parties, including his own, and from President Abdullah Gul
Like I say I suspect Tayyip Erdogan is being pushed off the fence of trying to play both sides. Like so many in the greater ME area they know they have no choice but cooperate with the OWO but are still hoping to retain an Islamic union within the OWO.

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

All the reports are saying every time the police broke it up they came back a whole lot bigger. Plus it has spread all across Turkey.

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Turkish police detained 939 people in protests: Interior Minister

Turkish police detained 939 people in 90 different demonstrations across Turkey, interior minister Muammer Guler said on Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/turkish-police...193022852.html

[Guest]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Hi John

Saying a prayer for your daughter.

Thanks, SAT! We hope to skype with her tomorrow and get an update?

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

If she says something you feel you can share.....


The reason a "park" could start all this.
Arabs worriedly watch Turkey simmer

The Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera reports that a public park sparked a clash between Turkey’s Islamists and secularists. The outlet explains that 73 years ago, secularists destroyed an Ottoman fortress and built a park in its stead. Now, Erdogan wants to rebuild the original Ottoman fortress.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/arabs-w...turkey-simmer/

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Erdogan singled out the Republican People's Party (CHP) - set up in 1924 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded Turkey's modern secular state - for attack over a dispute he described as ideological.

"We think that the main opposition party which is making resistance calls on every street is provoking these protests," Erdogan said on Turkish television.

Turkey's fiercest anti-government unrest for years erupted when trees were torn down at a park in Taksim Square under government plans to construct a new mosque and rebuild a replica Ottoman-era barracks.

"This reaction is no longer about the ripping out 12 trees. This is based on ideology," said Erdogan, whose conservative vision for the nation has angered more liberal Turks. Referring to the planned mosque, he added: "Obviously I will not ask for permission for this from the head of CHP or a few looters."

http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/erd...141031558.html

on Sunday of stirring a wave of anti-government protests, as tens of thousands regrouped in Istanbul and Ankara after a lull and trouble flared again in the capital.

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

PM Erdogan says social media 'danger to society'

"There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...387396,00.html

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

For those who are interested Haaretz has a live blog up and running re Turkey

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-e...h-day-1.527385

But it has widened into a broader show of defiance against Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

[Guest]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

PM Erdogan says social media 'danger to society'


http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...387396,00.html

Just talked to our daughter a couple of hours ago and she said Social Media was what was doing Erdogan in because the true story is getting out as he tries to suppress the media.

Jane says his son is a contractor and is the reason he is into shopping malls especially the one in the only remaining green space in Istanbul. Rumor has it that he wants to run for President, too, and is building a campaign strategy.

She says the violence is pretty bad and the pictures of the police helping the kids they just gassed are a setup. The police are being directed by the government even though it is trying to say they are on their own.

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Efrat Aviv, a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a lecturer in the department of Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University, who closely follows the Turkish media, told The Jerusalem Post that it is difficult to find out what is going on because Turkey does not have a freedom of the press and its media are not broadcasting much about the protests.

In addition, she said, one of her contacts inside the country said that on Saturday, Facebook and Twitter were shut down for a few hours.

Aviv sees the outburst as a result of a building tension that blew up because of a number of factors that have been irritating a large segment of the population, and not only secular Turks, but also some religious people and Erdogan voters.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Ara...-Turkey-315217

[SAT]

Re: Turkish police crack down on Istanbul park protest

Just talked to our daughter a couple of hours ago and she said Social Media was what was doing Erdogan in because the true story is getting out as he tries to suppress the media.

Jane says his son is a contractor and is the reason he is into shopping malls especially the one in the only remaining green space in Istanbul. Rumor has it that he wants to run for President, too, and is building a campaign strategy.

She says the violence is pretty bad and the pictures of the police helping the kids they just gassed are a setup. The police are being directed by the government even though it is trying to say they are on their own.

Wow that does totally confirm what is getting out. Obviously it is so much more then just a park.
It is interesting as the military in Turkey has been the guardian of secularism for years and years. They had been accused recently of planning to overthrow Erdogan if he change the constitution away from secular.

Rumor has it that he wants to run for President, too, and is building a campaign strategy.

That sounds so much like Mubarak and one of the reason Egypt was finally pushed over the edge.
Erdogan apparently, as hard as he has tried, can't run in the coming election. One can only imagine that is why his son's name is coming up.

PS
One of the Reuters articles stated the young are afraid if Erdogan isn't stopped now they will be force to wear head scarfs soon.

Now in his last term as prime minister, Erdogan is trying to leave his stamp on Turkey by recasting foreign policy, overhauling the constitution and even transforming the ancient Istanbul skyline.

But some, including former supporters, accuse him of growing increasingly authoritarian, muzzling the media, tightening his AK party's grip on state institutions and putting religion at the centre of politics in violation of Turkey's secular constitution.

"If it were up to the prime minister, I would be wearing a head scarf," said Tugba Bitiktas, a 25-year-old unemployed university graduate, before she joined anti-government protests in central Istanbul late on Saturday

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9510DJ20130602