Turkey - A second week of protest

Ankara police disperse protesters with tear gas as Turkish officials say 'process is under control'

RT,

8 June, 2013

Police have deployed tear gas and water cannons to quell more than 10,000 protesters that gathered in downtown Ankara. This comes as officials claim the protests are under control and the process is "becoming normalized and in line with common sense."

The rally in the Turkish capital started peacefully in the early hours of the morning, reports the Hurriyet Daily. As the protesters arrived at the Kizilay Square in late afternoon, police there made calls to disperse in order to not block car traffic.

The police then started "a sudden and unexpected intervention" as the protesters ran to the narrow streets surrounding the square.

According to witness reports on twitter police were targeting and detaining “random” youth in the crowd. Police reportedly made at least three arrests.

Authorities deployed over 4,000 riot police to quell the unrest, witnesses claim.

Meanwhile in Istanbul a massive crowd packed the whole of Taksim Square. Protesters in the epicenter of the countrywide anti-government movement were chanting and setting off flares while the police kept their distance from the rally.

Even the fans from rival football teams Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Galatasaray united in the square, AFP reports.

On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held an urgent meeting with the top officials from the ruling AKP party and parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek.

Following the meeting, Cicek said the mass protests that have been gripping the country are now "under control" and the process “is becoming normalized and increasingly in line with common sense".

"We are ready to listen to all reasonable, legal and democratic demands," he added.

Turkey's protesters proclaimed as true heirs of nation's founding father

Ataturk, the secular reformer, has become the symbol for young Turks defying what they see as Erdogan's reactionary reversion to the Ottoman past

the Guardian,

8 June, 2013

Among the tents, snoozing youth and pleasant shady trees of Istanbul's Gezi Park there are portraits of one man in a European suit. Wherever you look Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – founder of the Turkish Republic – gazes sternly at you. Photos of the first president hang from branches, have been affixed to tea stalls, and even encircle a giant banner showing Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dressed as Hitler.

"We really love Ataturk. He changed our state. He made it into a modern republic," explained Murat Bakirdoven, a 24-year-old biology student who has been camping in the park for a week. Someone had stuck another photo of Ataturk – this time in a lounge suit, sitting on a leather chair, cigarette in hand – on a nearby tree. Bakirdoven added: "Erdogan wants us to forget him. Instead we are trying to create an Ataturk renaissance."

For the protesters who have taken part in Turkey's anti-government demonstrations, Ataturk is a hero. Dead for 75 years, he has become the reborn symbol of this student-driven anti-Erdogan movement. (The other motif is a penguin – a reference to the state media, which failed to report on the uprising for several days; one channel, CNN Turk, instead screened a nature documentary on Antarctica).

The symbolism goes to the heart of what this unprecedented uprising is about: Turkey's modern identity. At issue is whether Turkey should be the progressive, secular European nation-state that Ataturk originally envisaged and shaped from the ruins of the Ottoman empire, or a more explicitly religious country, a sort of Muslim version of Christian democracy. The protesters want the former; Erdogan, and his ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP), it appears, the latter.

What has infuriated protesters is what they perceive as Erdogan's clunking attempts to impose his Islamic values on everyone else. Last month Turkey's government passed a new law banning the sale of alcohol between 10pm and 6am, and banishing it from the vicinity of schools and mosques. Two years ago it forbade access from Turkey to pornographic websites and temporarily shut down YouTube. Erdogan has spoken out against gay rights. "All this built up a wall of pressure," Bakirdoven said. Many also sense a creeping campaign to undermine Ataturk himself. Traditionally girls and boys would celebrate Ataturk day, 19 May, by dancing and singing in stadiums around the country. In 2012 Erdogan ditched the ceremony, saying no one wanted to see girls prance around in skimpy skirts. Then last week Erdogan defended his anti-alcohol legislation by obliquely calling Ataturk and his closest ally, Ismet Inonu, a couple of "drunkards".

All of this has galvanised educated, middle-class Turks to defend their personal freedoms. It began as a small environmental protest against plans to redevelop Gezi Park, and Istanbul's adjoining Taksim Square. But over the past two weeks it has morphed into a countrywide revolt. Three people have been killed, 4,000 injured and 900 arrested. The demonstrations have spread to more than 70 Turkish cities, including the capital, Ankara, and the restive western city of Izmir.

Erdogan has responded to this crisis in typically abrasive fashion. He dismissed the protesters as "looters". He denounced Twitter as a "curse" and laid into the New York Times. On Friday he accused the European Union of hypocrisy after it condemned the crackdown by Turkish riot police, who turned water cannon and teargas on peaceful demonstrators. He has also sought to blame the unrest on murky foreign forces and homegrown terrorists.

In the meantime, Gezi Park has been transformed into Turkey's first ever hippy commune, home to a vibrant open-air democracy festival: volunteers plant flowers and collect rubbish; there is a bookshop; and free food for camp denizens. At night tens of thousands pack into the area to sing and dance – drumming until the early hours. The spirit of May 1968 hovers in the air. "Ataturk said that Turkey belonged to the youth. That's us," said Ayda Agaoglu, a 23-year-old architecture student.

Analysts say that Erdogan's neo-Islamist legislative project has backfired. "He [Erdogan] will never manage to control civil society. It's completely empowered now," said Cengiz Aktar, professor of political science at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University. "To some extent this is re-Islamisation. Erdogan is a devout Muslim. But more than that he is a social engineer. He has a very high opinion of his own values, which happen to be Islamic values."

According to Aktar, Erdogan decided to undermine the Ataturk reforms after winning a whopping majority in the 2011 parliamentary elections, his third election victory. "Political Islam always taught, and sometimes rightly so, that Muslims were a majority in this country, especially Sunni believers. Kemalist power de-legitimised them. That's the fundamental paradigm. They [Erdogan and his supporters] started to challenge that."

Critics believe that the plans for the square amount to a further assault on Ataturk and his historical legacy. On Friday, Erdogan said he wanted to demolish the Ataturk cultural centre – a modernist building on Taksim's north side, which he says is not "earthquake-proof" – and replace it with a baroque opera house.

Most controversially, Erdogan wants to raze Gezi Park and rebuild the Ottoman military barracks that used to be there. The barracks were the site of a 1909 attempt by the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II to stop the liberal reforms that eventually led to Ataturk's modern republic. Erdogan has also named Istanbul's "third bridge", linking Europe and Asia, after an Ottoman despot who slaughtered tens of thousands of Alevis, Kurds and Turkmens back in the 16th century.

Critics say these decisions are part of a sinister policy, yearning for a kitsch version of the pre-Ataturk past. According to Murat Bakirdoven, there are few reasons to be nostalgic. "The Ottoman empire was religious, very strict, and ruled by Islamic law. Women didn't have rights and couldn't vote." Ataturk, by contrast, separated religion from government, and gave Turkish women the vote before their Swiss and German counterparts. "Ataturk wasn't a dictator. He believed in law. He was highly intelligent," he added.

It is unclear how long Istanbul's summer of love will last. In the meantime, the young protesters are enjoying their own utopian moment: flirting, debating, drinking cans of Efes beer, and learning from each other. At first groups of students chanted: "We are the soldiers of Ataturk"; this died out after feminist protesters objected to its militaristic overtones. Bakirdoven said: "We used to sing 'Erdogan is the son of a whore'. But when the police teargassed us, one of the brothels on Taksim Square opened its doors, and the women gave us shelter and treated us with lemons. We don't sing that any more."

“Protests in Turkey are becoming larger and whims of demonstrators - more original. The boycott of banks is all the rage among the opponents of the regime - the crisis has started to affect the country's economy.

“More opponents of the regime withdraw their savings or simply closed their accounts in GarantiBank - the third largest credit institution in Turkey. They do it because behind it there is concern Dogus Holding, which in turn controls one of the major news channels NTV. The reason - this TV, and many other others behave as if the country has no protests.

“Behavior of the protesters seems to bear fruit: one week the bank was "relieved" by 30-40 million Turkish lira (14-16 million) and five thousand credit cards were returned, told Reuters director of banking institution Ergun loop. Another original idea of the protesters is to organize demonstrations in front of the restaurants owned by the concern Dogus Holding. Demonstrators powerful clap and chant: "Kalk" (Stani!) to invite customers to leave. And some of them actually respond to the call to humans outside.”

---O.P (Bulgaria) – via Facebook

Turkish protests hamper economy and tourism

Ataturk, the secular reformer, has become the symbol for young Turks defying what they see as Erdogan's reactionary reversion to the Ottoman past

DW,

8 June, 2013

As anti-government protests in Turkey continue, they are beginning to have an effect on tourism and the economy. But critics also warn that signs are pointing to even deeper structural problems in Turkey.

'Boycott' is the magic word among protesters out on the streets of Istanbul and all across Turkey these days. More and more of those critical of the government have cancelled their accounts and credit cards at GarantiBank, the country's third largest financial institution. The reason: A large part of the bank belongs to the Dogus Holding which also controls one of the country's news channels, NTV. And NTV so far – just like many other channels – has hardly reported about the protests.

"35 to 40 million lira in the past weeks have been withdrawn and around 1,500 credit cards have been cancelled," Ergün Özen, CEO of GarantiBank told Reuters news agency. That's around 16 million euros ($21 million). But the protesters are also targeting other branches of Dogus Holding. Many restaurants belonging to the company have seen demonstrations on their doorsteps with protesters encouraging guests to get up and leave.

Demonstrations in Istanbul have developed into widespread protests against the government

Profit and loss

Other companies, however, are managing to benefit from the demonstrations on Taksim Square. "The construction site has not been good for business. Now at least there are the protesters and we supply them with everything they need," Ahmet Durmus told Deutsche Welle.

The 40-year old works as the manager of a restaurant not far from Gezi Park, one of the few green patches in the city center of Istanbul, which is slated to be bulldozed to make room for a shopping mall. Another person happy about the extra money he can make thanks to the demonstrators is a young man selling flags. "I used to have to go to concerts to sell my stuff. But now it's enough to just stand here," he says.

But as the Turks take to the streets, tourists increasingly are staying away. And that's biting into the profits of souvenir shops, like the one run by Rifa Güzel. He says that all he's doing is sitting in his shop, waiting. "I have losses up to 90 percent. The protests are really devastating for business," he complains. "There are direct consequences for tourism," confirms Seyfettin Gürsel, "but that's a problem limited to Istanbul."

Need for reforms

The Turkish lira has suffered against the euro and dollar

However, the economy as a whole is also affected. The Istanbul stock exchange took a dive and the Turkish lira has also dropped to its lowest level in 18 months. The unrest is to blame, explains Seyfettin Gürze, director of the economics faculty at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. "Before the crisis, direct investment from abroad was very high and it financed a large part of the current accounts deficit. But since the crisis, those investments have declined."

Essentially, it's a structual problem, says Gürsel. "The current accounts deficit is mainly financed through debentures, short-term loans and short-term investments on the stock exchange. That is a structural weakness." Turkey needs reforms in the economic sector, he argues, for example, a comprehensive labor market and tax reforms. "Unfortunately, these reforms were postponed after the election of the current government and I'm not sure the government is aware of these structural problems," he said.

Investors are skeptical

The capital withdrawals had already begun before the unrest, Mustafa Sönmez, an economist and journalist, stressed to DW. "The protests have simply made it worse, because they affect the security situation and relations to the EU and the US. Investors are concerned by the unrest and have pulled back." His prognosis is candid: If the violence continues and the government makes no effort to accomodate the protesters, the economic situation will get worse.