What’s Happening in Turkey?

[Valin]

NRO:

 

And how will it end?

6/13/13

 

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Are the protests in Turkey more Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street?

 

BARRY RUBIN: The idea that this is some far-Left thing is a slander by Islamists. Those involved include a wide front of social democrats, liberals, and conservatives usually called center-right in Turkey and all sorts of people who are tired of a ten-year-long march toward Islamism. This is the kind of thing we should be supporting. Instead, unfortunately, the Obama administration is on the side of the democratically elected dictator, so to speak.

 

(Snip)

 

LOPEZ: Do words like dictator and tyranny overdramatize the situation?

 

RUBIN: The Western mass media have not covered whats been going on in Turkey during the last decade. Listen to what millions of Turks say. The media-economic power of the regime is incredible. There are many anecdotes: a television journalist practically trembling while talking to me about repression in his office; the billing of a newspaper for hundreds of millions of alleged tax debts unless it toed the regime line; the women who fear to walk through Istanbul neighborhoods unless dressed in Turkish-style Islamic garb; the anti-American propaganda; the knowledge of government officials that you will be promoted faster if your wife wears a headscarf; the thousands of political prisoners; the Jewish family firm told that, after almost a century of providing equipment to the government, they shouldnt bother to put in bids any more; the anti-Semitic website that, behind the scenes, was sponsored by the ministry of education; a retired general sentenced to a year in prison for telling a villager that the government had betrayed the country. A lot of the truth was reported by the U.S. embassy, as we can see in the Wikileaks.

 

(Snip)

 

LOPEZ: What if the White House were to reconsider? What would be a helpful policy?

 

RUBIN: There are people in the State Department who are very unhappy with whats been happening in Turkey, as you can see in the embassy reporting. There were high-ranking officials who wanted Obama to take a tougher line toward Erdogan, breaking away from his pro-Muslim Brotherhood policy in Syria. Up to now, U.S. Syrian policy has been made in Turkey. But Obama kept to his pro-Erdogan line. The government renewed the exceptions to Iranian sanctions for Turkey. If Erdogan goes to Gaza, it will really throw a pie in Obamas face and show that he has no respect for U.S. interests. Note that Erdogan has disregarded the supposed détente with Israel and broke all his commitments despite the fact that these were made as direct promises to Obama! But he paid nothing for this behavior.

 

(Snip)

[Casino67]

Live Streaming Video: Protests Riots Ankara Istanbul Turkey

 

http://newsblogged.com/live-streaming-video-protests-riots-ankara-istanbul-turkey

[Valin]

Live Streaming Video: Protests Riots Ankara Istanbul Turkey

 

http://newsblogged.com/live-streaming-video-protests-riots-ankara-istanbul-turkey

Thank you.

[Valin]

Erdoğan Over the Edge

Claire Berlinski

3 June 2013

 

As I began to write this, at 4:00 am on May 31, protests against Turkish police—prompted by their crackdown on demonstrators opposing the demolition of Taksim Square’s Gezi Park—were spreading from the heart of Istanbul to the entire country. As of today, the headline on Drudge reads—not inaccurately—TURK BERSERK.

 

The story began when the government in Ankara decided that Gezi Park, in the center of Istanbul, should be demolished and replaced by a shopping mall. Now, Gezi Park is hardly the Jardins de Luxembourg. It’s a shabby rat trap that you wouldn’t walk through alone at night, and you’re more apt to find used condoms on its lawns than daisies and cowslips. But it is, all the same, one of the last remaining spaces with trees in the neighborhood.

 

 

(Snip)

 

When the company building the shopping mall began cutting down trees, protesters occupied the park—peacefully. But in truth, these protests weren’t about the park or even about the shopping malls. They were about a people exhausted by Istanbul’s uncontrolled growth; by its relentless traffic; by the incessant noise (especially that of construction); by massive immigration from the countryside; by predatory construction companies—widely and for good reason believed to be in bed with the government—which have, over the past decade, destroyed a great deal of the city’s loveliness and cultural heritage. But most of all, they are about a nation’s fury with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s growing authoritarianism, symbolized by Istanbul’s omnipresent police, the phalanxes of so-called Robocops. They are so notoriously trigger-happy that journalists on Twitter post a daily tear-gas report.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Erdogan's supporters rally, dismissing Turkish protests as a 'big game'

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed hundreds of thousands of his cheering supporters in Istanbul saying, 'My patience has run out' with anti-government protests.

Scott Peterson, Staff

June 16, 2013

 

Istanbul

 

Turkeys largest city was divided on Sunday by competing shows of force, between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who staged a mammoth rally of loyalists, and anti-government demonstrators, who clashed with police on Istanbul's streets once again to protest his rule.

 

After 17 days of street violence that have posed an unprecedented challenge to Mr. Erdogans decade in power, he told a crowd of hundreds of thousands: My patience has run out.

 

Using language that belittled the protesters as disrespectful and irrelevant, Erdogan appeared to point the finger of blame at everyone except himself and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), citing instead the party's economic triumphs and democratic reforms. His supporters were similarly dismissive, repeatedly calling the protest movement centered on Taksim Square a "big game," a catch phrase that sums up Erdogan's belief that the demonstrations are an outside conspiracy fanned by foreign media.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Turkey Unrest Goes on Despite End to Park Protest

ELENA BECATOROS and SUZAN FRASER Associated Press

ISTANBUL June 16, 2013

 

Riot police firing tear gas and water cannons repelled thousands of anti-government protesters attempting to converge on Istanbul's central Taksim Square on Sunday, unbowed even as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended his crackdown at a rally of his supporters.

 

A day after police quashed an 18-day sit-in at the square's Gezi Park, Erdogan spoke to hundreds of thousands of his supporters on one side of Turkey's largest city, and throngs of protesters angrily tried to regroup and reclaim Taksim. The square had become the symbolic center of defiance against Erdogan's government.

 

The contrast between the two events highlighted growing divisions in Turkish society, which many say have been exacerbated by Erdogan's fiery rhetoric as he faced down the most widespread protests in his 10-year tenure.

 

Although they have dented his international image and angered many at home, the protests are unlikely to prove a significant challenge to his government. He was elected with 50 percent of the vote just two years ago.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

BBC: Turkish government says it may use army to end protests

17 June 2013

 

The Turkish government has said it could use the army to end nearly three weeks of unrest by protesters in Istanbul and other cities.

 

The government would use "all its powers" and the armed forces if necessary, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on state-run television.

 

It is the first time the Islamist-rooted ruling party has raised the prospect of deploying the armed forces.

 

The issue is sensitive as the army is seen as a bastion of secularism.

(Snip)

 

Vid at link

[Valin]

The Struggle for Istanbul

Sean R. Singer

6/6/13

 

 

On May 29 thousands gathered on the shores of the Golden Horn in the historic neighborhood of Balat to celebrate the 560th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. It was the kind of early summer Istanbul evening that gives a slight taste of the thick humidity to come in June and July. The citys Mayor Kadir Topbas arrived by boat and in his opening address described the conquest as marking the transition from the darkness of Europes Middle Age to the Modern Age. With the conquest, the differences between language, religion, race and sect disappeared", Topbas said. With the conquest a message of peace was given to the world.

 

(Snip)

 

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at the opening of an archery lodge in Okmeydani earlier in the day, praised Mehmet the Conquerors pledge to defend the lifestyles, beliefs, and freedoms of the citys residents in the conquests aftermath. In our civilization, conquest is not only the taking of lands, countries, cities; at the same time it is the winning of hearts, the conquering of hearts. The following morning the citys police would attempt to conquer the hearts of protestors in nearby Gezi Park with tear gas.

 

(Snip)

 

 

This movement does not seem to be about Turkeys next election or even electoral politics. It is not a culture war either, although framing it that way is to the AKPs benefit. And its not really about 75-year-old trees. As one sign in Gezi Park reads, This is a struggle of rights. It is a challenge to the belief that democracy is the ballot box and nothing more, a claim Erdogan repeated in a direct rebuke to President Abdullah Güls efforts to ease tensions on June 3. It is a rejection of a democratic majoritarianism that treats the opposition as disloyal and of a patriarchal model of citizenship that prioritizes duties over rights, the nation over the individual. This model dates back much further than the AKPs rise to power in 2002.

 

The protestors I have interacted with dont seem particularly interested in Henri Prost, Adnan Menderes, or Mehmet the Conqueror. For the moment it seems to be a fight for a more democratic present and future, which has much more to offer Turkey than a romanticized past, be it Kemalist or Ottoman.

[Valin]

AT LAST Barry Rubin reveals The Truth about who is really behind these protests. You'll never in a thousand years guess!

[Valin]

Facebook and Twitter refuse to cooperate with Turkish govt crackdown on protesters

Mandy Nagy

June 27, 2013

 

Turkey appears to be following through on its threats to take over more control of Twitter and Facebook postings, after protests heavily driven by social media have engulfed the country for weeks. But the social media giants do not appear to be cooperating with demands to share more user data with Turkish authorities.

 

 

 

From Hurriyet Daily News:

 

 

The states offer to cooperate with social media micro-blogging website Twitter over the Gezi Park protests has not been received positively by the company, Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım said today, Anadolu Agency has reported.

The same Hurriyet Daily News article also indicated that Facebook had responded positively and was currently is in cooperation with the state. However, Facebook has since posted a fact-check statement denying its cooperation with Turkish authorities and expressing concern about potential proposed legislation that might require the social media site to provide user information to those authorities more frequently.

 

(Snip)

 

 

From Reuters:

 

Transport and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters on Wednesday that without a corporate presence in the country, the Turkish government could not quickly reach Twitter officials with orders to take down content or with requests for user data.

 

When information is requested, we want to see someone in Turkey who can provide this there needs to be an interlocutor we can put our grievance to and who can correct an error if there is one, he said.

 

We have told all social media that if you operate in Turkey you must comply with Turkish law, Yildirim said.

 

[]

 

An official at the ministry, who asked not to be named, said the government had asked Twitter to reveal the identities of users who posted messages deemed insulting to the government or prime minister, or that flouted peoples personal rights.

(snip)

[Valin]

Kurdish mourners blast Turkish government after shootings

 

 

 

ISTANBUL | Sat Jun 29, 2013 8:52am EDT

 

(Reuters) - Hundreds of Kurds chanted anti-government slogans at the funeral on Saturday of a demonstrator killed by security forces in southeast Turkey, raising fears of violence at weekend protest marches planned around the country.

Turkish security forces killed one person and wounded ten on Friday when they fired on a group protesting against the construction of a new gendarmerie outpost in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey.

 

(Snip)

 

In a mark of solidarity with the Kurds, Turkish public sector workers joined members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in a peaceful march through Istanbul on Saturday.

 

The Kurdish tensions come at a time of increased vigilance and nervousness among Turkish security forces after weeks of unrelated anti-government protests in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities in which four people died and thousands injured.

 

(snip)