Gezi Park - Istanbul

[sihhi]

A number of this kind of graffiti around 'Last night police beat up its public here'

Gezi Park sees its first major act of non-police violence - a group of 'ultra' Kemalists attack the Kurdish nationalist BDP tent with sticks and knives, one person injured.

Gazi Mahallesi is full of police hundreds of police in armoured vehicles apparently, one unconscious eighteen year old struck by a gas bomblet is undergoing an operation after being moved from hospital to hospital finally in Okmeydani.

Gazi's main street as of a moment ago, apparently:

 

[sihhi]

This is NTV Turkey's most liberal/left main channel using Taksim as a backdrop photo to discuss events - it has censored out the PM's name from the poster which says 'Shut up Tayyip':

 

[sihhi]

This is Dersim Ovacik earlier this evening heading for the police station to demand an end to the construction of more police stations:

 

[sihhi]

Edit: From Sunday but a characteristic kind of approach

 

[butchersapron]

Sure i saw that pic a few days ago sihhi.

 

[sihhi]

You're right - I think people are making rhetorical points too often on twitter.

Here it is from 4 days ago http://istanbulfreepress.com/page/2

The 18 year old today was said to have been killed got picked up by an opposition TV station.

I get the feeling that people who aren't out are tweeting exaggerated.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Edit: From Sunday but a characteristic kind of approach

Is that just water with a dye in it from a high pressure hose or is there some kind of irritant in it? Anyone know?

 

[sihhi]

Tomorrow at Friday prayers the plan is for the Square to become an open air prayer session.
Remarkable lengths people have to go to prove that they are pro-Sunni Islam in a general sense - it still doesn't work.

Here is one of the sort of leftist - ie actually liberal Islamist guys Ihsan Eliacik announcing it

https://twitter.com/ihsaneliacik/status/342765501585440768

This is the 'troll' response of an Islamist: Ha ha, the 'Friday of resistance' is with the real males in Syria, sweetheart... If you're a man do something with the Islamists. If anyone is still prepared to look on your face.

"@ihsaneliacik Hahh haa.. Direnis Cumasi erkekler ile Suriyede canim... Yigitsen islamcilarla bi seyler yap. Yuzune bakan olursa artik."

 

[sihhi]

Is that just water with a dye in it from a high pressure hose or is there some kind of irritant in it? Anyone know?

It has something that makes your skin hurt a lot and it's also bad if it goes in your eyes.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Thanks sihhi

 

[peterkro]

It has something that makes your skin hurt a lot and it's also bad if it goes in your eyes.

Pepper spray,non?

 

[sihhi]

Anyway, the loyalist demonstrations have got the official approval with a massive stage-managed rally at Istanbul airport to welcome back the PM.

Insane coverage of an event live cameras on an event that is a non-event - no political slogans, no demands, just loyalists, no police attacks nothing.
Instead a group of people shouting a slogan 'Minority don't get confused, don't end our patience'

 

[sihhi]

Slogans: 'Tayyip at home, Tayyip abroad'

 

[sihhi]

Pepper spray,non?

It's something like it. It's much disputed but several doctors have said if you've been subjected to enough of it on your clothes, it helps weaken your skin and bones so that if you are hit afterwards your bones break easier in 43% of cases. It does severely affect you I've been told. The concentration of the mixture with water is important.
Prof. Veli Lok from Izmir published about it and then got in some complications/dropped from department managerial status at his hospital.

 

[treelover]

Large scale clashes between rival protesters in Rize, pretty grim.

 

[elbows]

It's much disputed but several doctors have said if you've been subjected to enough of it on your clothes, it helps weaken your skin and bones so that if you are hit afterwards your bones break easier in 43% of cases.

That sounds like complete bollocks. I am not complaining about you letting us know about these sorts of rumours though, its useful to know what shit is being spread.

 

[sihhi]

That sounds like complete bollocks. I am not complaining about you letting us know about these sorts of rumours though, its useful to know what shit is being spread.

It has to be pressurised, but I believe it is more dangerous than ordinary coloured water.
Something is added, it's not poisonous but I'm informed it's 'like nettle wounds all over your skin and having forks scraped over'.
The more layers of clothes and proper goggles you have you on the more resistant you become but also less mobile.

 

[sihhi]

'like nettle wounds all over your skin and having forks scraped over' that's the sensation that carries on for a good eight hours apparently

 

[elbows]

Pepper spray remains by far the most likely explanation of what it is.

 

[sihhi]

This is the business impact in an article about the alcohol law.

The lira is down 0.8 percent this week, the Istanbul stock market has dropped 12 percent and benchmark two-year government bond yields are up 71 basis points, or 0.71 percentage point.
The cost to protect against losses in Turkish debt using credit-default swaps rose 34 basis points this week to 166, heading for the biggest increase since September 2011 and climbing 10 basis points above Brazil’s. The swaps pay off should a government renege on its debt obligations, with a higher value representing greater perceived risk of default.

Still relatively minor - not like the 1999 crisis.

 

[sihhi]

Here is the media self-censorship in effect Zaman is most widely read, Sabah 2nd. The others are a rag bag all leading with the same nonsensical line from the PM 'we are ready to give our lives for democratic demands' all while insisting on the Ottoman barracks.

 

[treelover]

A cleaner working in dersane college close to Kizilay dies of a heart attack brought on after constantly facing tear gas for the past couple of days. Picture here.

Main development seems to be fractures in the Taksim Gezi sit in itself - many left groups have abandoned it as the liberals take over, with their plans for a concert and extracting empty promises by negotiation before people are even released.

Media protest: Now do you understand why every Kurdish household needs two satellite dishes (ie one for self-censoring Turkish media, one for international satelite and ROJ TV)

Gezi Park midnight Thursday June 6th. There are roughly 30,000 people in the Park and on Taksim (the 2 are adjacent). The atmosphere is that of a large and crowded rock festival only without the music (though there's plenty of singing going on). There is no sign at all that the protest is about to fizzle out. The Occupy movement are now in the minority as many of the demonstrators are from organised political and social groups (the biggest one being Beşiktaş football supporters club) and are organised… flags, tents, loudspeakers, speeches, bulletins… The park is a mixture of tents and people walking, sitting and standing in large and small groups, singing, chanting slogans, intermingled with all kinds of sellers - food, drink, masks, flags… There's a kind of self-organisation to it all which is working, there are people walking around collecting rubbish and the throng are being respectful and I didn't pick up any aggression.

Are you sure, A Guardian 'eyewitness' says this?

 

[sihhi]

Many Istanbul leftists are here in Gazi Mahalesi tonight - picture as of 30 mins ago - apparently, again taking from Turkish sources messages and twitters, 3 times as many police as yesterday (police were driven back from their positions, protestors setting up 2 burning barricades to force them back attacked with petrol bombs):

 

[sihhi]

News is Gazi is flooded with the large police riot control vehicles at least 6 heading down one small street apparently.

Today also saw police confronting youths protesting about the discovery of 4 bodies in an unmarked group shallow grave in Cizre/Cizir, Kurdistan. Lots of gas used, youths setting light to these large CCTV camera post-like monitoring devices.

 

[Fedayn]

Are you sure, A Guardian 'eyewitness' says this?

What bit are you doubting?

 

[miss direct]

The outside of our university was flooded with riot police today. Several hundred. One of them pointed his big gun at us. Sick of seeing them. Sihhi, I don't see anything about Gazi mh other than on here. Why is it kicking off there in particular?

 

[yield]

Gazi Mahallesi is still a predominantly working class alevi neighbourhood?

Erdogan refuses to recognise cemevi as places of worship. There were riots there in 1995.

 

[sihhi]

For many the issue isn't the non-acceptance of cemevi, but the compulsory religious education lessons and the state money that goes into more and more mosques.

It seems the movement has now largely become a unspoken CHP rally - the Taksim demands against the Third Bosphorus Bridge and against dams cutting down forests in deep Anatolia have been dropped. No CHP flags but ever more Kemal Ataturk ones.

The huge banners are all that remain of the serious leftists in Taksim square although even that has been seen as too much and rubbished on twitter by middle-class types calling for a "non-banner Taksim".

Some Fenerbahce fans have phsyically attacked a group of BDP supporters for displaying Ocalan flags.

Government has announced mass pro-government rallies for 15 and 16 June, coinciding with a planned strike in order to drown out media reporting of it.

It is leading the attack given space by the government-aligned media with PM's statement that the protests are the accomplices of the '(money) interest lobby'.

 

[sihhi]

Gazi Mahallesi is still a predominantly working class alevi neighbourhood?

Yes alevi with large minorities of Kurds who have moved there since the early 90s too.
Journalists have been pushed away and threatened with arrest there.

 

[SpineyNorman]

It is leading the attack given space by the government-aligned media with PM's statement that the protests are the accomplices of the '(money) interest lobby'.

Is that likely to be some kind of dog whistle antisemitism?