Armenian News – Tert.am

ANTALYA – Doğan News Agency

Antalya Metropolitan Municipality refused to provide water for the riot control vehicles, called TOMAs, which are being used by the police against protesters, according to Doğan news agency.

The municipality, led by the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Mayor Mustafa Akaydın, refused to allow police to tap into the water tanks belonging to firefighters to use on protesters, citing future trouble in case a fire broke out in the city.

Police forces then turned to Kerpez officials, a district municipality, represented by a ruling party member, and used the water stored in tanks for the watering of parks and gardens.

A representative from the governor’s office, Turan Eren, soon intervened in the process, however, and instructed public offices to provide the TOMAs with water under official orders. While municipalities are elected under the Turkish political system, the governors are state-appointed, which could cause tension in cities where there is a multi-party presence.

A committee from the Socialist International has expressed its worries over the rise of authoritarianism in Turkey, as well as its concerns about the “disproportionate and excessive use of force” by police against protesters.

“The committee expresses deep concern over disproportionate and excessive use of power by the police against citizens exercising their right to free assembly in Turkey. We would like to remind the Turkish government that freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the right to have peaceful protests are fundamentals of a democratic regime,” read a declaration issued by the Socialist International Committee for the CIS, Caucasus and Black Sea meeting in Tbilisi on June 4.

The meeting was chaired by Luis Ayala, secretary general of the Socialist International, and was attended lawmakers from regional countries, including Aykan Erdemir, a Bursa deputy from the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

“We observe with great worry the rise of authoritarian inclinations in Turkey, and the ensuing apathy toward citizens’ legitimate grievances. We call upon the government to show restraint and respect human rights and freedoms,” it read.

The committee offered condolences for those who lost their lives during the protests and wished a speedy recovery for the injured. “The SI will continue to be in solidarity with the Turkish people and the Republican People’s Party, CHP, in their struggle for rights and freedoms, democracy, and social justice,” it said.

Around a thousand Greek leftists on Monday marched in support of Turkish protesters who clashed with police in Ankara for a fourth day in the greatest unrest to face Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. The Athens demonstration included a small group of Kurdish refugees who held a banner in Greek and Turkish: “Overturn the regime”.

A similar protest had been held in the northern city of Thessaloniki on Sunday.

The protests in Turkey started out as a local environment campaign and quickly turned into one of the biggest demonstrations against Erdogan’s government since it came to power over a decade ago.

Syriza, Greece’s second largest party, has condemned the Turkish police’s heavy-handed response to the protests and called on European Union authorities to put pressure on Ankara.

“All over Turkey there are protests over press freedom, union rights, the rights of Kurds, women and the right to protest. It is imperative that Erdogan listens,” Syriza said.

“Authoritarianism is broken on the street, solidarity with the Turkish people,” chanted the demonstrators from various leftist groups including the main opposition radical left Syriza party.

 

June 03, 2013 | 17:12

By Ivan Watson and Gul Tuysuz, CNN
June 3, 2013 — Updated 2146 GMT (0546 HKT)

Istanbul (CNN) — Protesters seething over their treatment by security forces hurled rocks at riot police in Ankara’s Kizilay Square on Monday, the latest in a string of violent clashes that have punctuated massive anti-government demonstrations spreading across Turkey — leaving thousands injured and at least one dead in the past two days alone.

The protests united demonstrators from across the political spectrum against a common foe: security forces who unleashed tear gas and water cannons on them in response to what had been largely peaceful protests against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“There has been unprecedented violence against protesters and social protest,” demonstrator Neslihan Ozgunes said Monday.

The Turkish Medical Association claimed that at least 3,195 people had been injured in clashes Sunday and Monday. Only 26 of them were in serious or critical condition, it said. One protester, Mehmet Ayvalitas, died of his injuries, the association said.

• Medical group: More than 3,000 are wounded in two days of clashes
• The protests are the biggest movement against the prime minister in his decade in power
• Hundreds have been detained across Turkey, with most released, a local agency says

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The global hacking collective Anynomous has promised to launch attacks against the Turkish government in response days of police violence against protesters at Taksim Gezi Park and around the country.

Erdoğan should learn from the fate of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and resign before inflaming the situation further, it said in a YouTube video that displayed shots of the recent violence between protesters and police.

The group managed to take down access to the Official Gazette and other sites with a hacking attempt late on June 2. The website of private channel NTV, which has come in for stiff criticism for failing to adequately cover the events, was also subjected to an apparent Anonymous attack early June 3.

Accusing the government of censoring social media to prevent citizens from learning the truth, Anonymous vowed to bring the Turkish government “to its knees” by attacking all state websites in “#opTurkey.”

Early on June 3, the group announced on Twitter that they had taken down websites of President Abdullah Gül, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Istanbul Governor’s Office and the Istanbul Police Department.

“We have watched for days with horror as our brothers and sisters in Turkey who are peacefully rising up against their tyrannical government [have been] brutalized, beaten, run over by riot vehicles, shot with water cannons and gassed in the streets,” the group said in a message posted on YouTube.

Anynomous said that while Turkey’s government claims to act like a democracy, it was more akin to the “petty dictators in China or Iran.”

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
The Observer, Saturday 1 June 2013 19.44 BST

corruption, especially linked to the construction industry, has been a growing problem. In April, for the first

time ever, two officials in Turkey’s public housing administration – which enjoys a virtually unopposed monopoly to redevelop private and public land, including a 20-year, $400bn urban renewal budget – were charged with extorting bribes and abuse of power.

Indeed those who have benefited from recent large projects have allegedly included key players in Turkish society, including members of Erdogan’s own party, a company run by Erdogan’s son-in-law and the Turkish armed forces.

Istanbul riots started over proposed parkland development but government’s increasingly authoritarian policies fuel unrest.

The protests triggered in Turkey by plans to redevelop a park into a shopping mall at first seem an unlikely cause for public anger. In reality, the demonstrations over Taksim Square’s Gezi Park go to the very heart of Turkey’s modern discontents.

Why it has become such a fraught issue was hinted at in a statement issued in the midst of the protests by Istanbul’s Chamber of Physicians, insisting: “It is not [the] job [of police and officials] to protect the profitability of the contractors who will build a shopping mall on Taksim Square.”

The rapid urbanisation of Turkey – and huge growth of Istanbul in the past two decades – has defined the transformation of Turkish society and politics. The continuing migration from rural areas like eastern Anatolia to Istanbul has fuelled the growth of the city, driving a building boom. Politically, it has been prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s moderate Islamist AKP that has benefited from this expansion, the recently urbanised being more socially conservative.

While tension between Turkey’s old secular elites and this new class have long been inevitable, two consequences have not been. As Transparency International made clear in a recent survey of Turkey, while its elections largely have been free and fair, corruption, especially linked to the construction industry, has been a growing problem. In April, for the first time ever, two officials in Turkey’s public housing administration – which enjoys a virtually unopposed monopoly to redevelop private and public land, including a 20-year, $400bn urban renewal budget – were charged with extorting bribes and abuse of power.

Indeed those who have benefited from recent large projects have allegedly included key players in Turkish society, including members of Erdogan’s own party, a company run by Erdogan’s son-in-law and the Turkish armed forces.

The perception in Turkey that barely regulated development is being driven for the economic benefit of entrenched interests with links to party politics, rather than in the public interest, has been fuelled by the hard data about some of the most controversial developments, including Gezi Park.

As a recent article in Hurriyet Daily News made clear, Turkey, and Istanbul in particular, hardly needs more malls. Istanbul already has so many that 11 in the city have been forced to close down.

All of these are issues that have been exacerbated by the majoritarian political style of Erdogan and the AKP. In refusing to back down over the mall development in a speech on Saturday, Erdogan underlined suspicions that he has no interest in dialogue with those who oppose him at a time when he is being accused of leading his country down an ever more authoritarian route.

A new controversial law has limited the sale of alcohol in the country, journalists increasingly have found themselves in jail, and moves by Erdogan would replace the 1980 coup constitution with a presidential system where the president would be elected directly and would no longer be reliant on the confidence of parliament.

If there is one thing that links all the themes of Taksim Square together, it is the question of accountability. Or rather the lack of it.

Thousands of demonstrators have gathered in central Istanbul for a third day of protests against Turkey’s Islamist-rooted government.

After a few hours of calm earlier in the day, Taksim Square, the focal point of the protests, began to fill up again with protesters waving flags, chanting anti-government slogans and calling on the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to step down.

“They call me a dictator,” he said in a speech on Sunday, a day after he called for an immediate end to the protests.

“If they liken a humble servant to a dictator, then I am at a loss for words.”

Dozens have been injured and more than 1,700 people arrested in 235 demonstrations that have flared up in 67 cities across the vast nation.

In the capital, Ankara, on Sunday, police reportedly fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse a crowd demonstrating against the government.

Some protesters camped overnight at Istanbul’s Taksim Square, gathering around the monument to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern secular Turkey.

Akin, who has been in Taksim for the past four days, said: “We are not leaving. The only answer now is for this government to fall. We are tired of this oppressive government constantly putting pressure on us.

“This is no longer about these trees,” he said, referring to Taksim’s Gezi Park, which was the initial focus of the protests.

Amnesty International said there had been two deaths, and Turkey’s Western allies including Britain and the US called on the government to show restraint.

Police withdrew from Taksim Square on Saturday after violent clashes in which they fired tear gas and turned water cannon against the demonstrators.