(11 June 2013) The protests continue in Turkey. What started as a protest to keep a public park, has grown into a protest against the ruling party AKP and the effects of its policies. Workers and citizens have demonstrated and some unions went on strike. Others unions are part of the Taksim Solidarity Platform as the project of the prime-minister has much in common with his project as mayor of Istanbul – to build a mosque and Ottoman baraques at the square which is a symbol of the struggle of modern Turkey.
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One of our union colleagues sent us this account of the protests in Ankara. As the police are arresting people, we do not give his name.
“After a four-day long police violence, yesterday (4 June), tens of thousands of people joined in the protests on the streets of Ankara without almost any incident until 12 am. A couple of friends which found opportunity to talk to police officers reported via social media that the security forces received an order not to intervene in the demonstrations, however they continued their routine attitude against people just after midnight.
What I have that charged in my account is that wound you may see from the attached photo. On Sunday night, a riot control vehicle - colloquially called “scorpion” - rode through the crowd consisting of around three thousand people who wanted to walk to the Kizilay square in an effort to join the main demonstrations. The distance between us decreased to 10 - 12 meters with this monstrous machine. It pointed the projector on to us, started to shoot pepper gas bombs and one of them hit my leg when I made an attempt to escape.
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No one can describe this behaviour as an interference to disperse the crowd or a self defence against young people which are only chanting and marching. They used the gas canisters as bullets. The government officials reported two deaths, but the information that reaching us showing the figure is yet more. The brain death of one protester announced on 2 June at around 17:00. More than four thousand people were injured - ten of them lost their eye.
Please watch this video (http://youtu.be/-hND9jXY-NI) that filmed a couple of hours before I shot on the same street. A women crying from her window: “please stop firing pepper gas bombs, we have a patient at home with asthma attack, we can not breath”. Then it is shooting to that apartment and later to the person who is filming. This is more than hate. We lived and felt the brutality and enmity in front of our eyes, on our bodies.
AKP and its lackeys called us a bunch of “terrorists, looters etc.”, but we are proving for days that we are a rising generation defending our rights, standing up for our environment, revolting against autocracy with an upmost democratic and peaceful manner and without engaging any clashes when there is no police brutality leveled at us. This will continue, we need it and we must!
The more international support we get, the lesser police violence we face with!
Regards from the heart of the general strike of DISK and KESK!”
- KESK, DISK and other organisations call for general strike
- Protest Letter from the Swedish union Vision
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