What is Happening in Istanbul?

The press could report on these events 10 years ago. Now they don't. The workers could celebrate May day in Taksim square just a few years ago, this year they were banned. People could express themselves more freely if they were not religious or if they were against the government. Now they fear retaliation, losing their job etc. This actually happened to journalists, they did lose their jobs. Hundreds are imprisoned without being convicted or even having a trial for months and years.

There are other indications that Turkey is turning into an Islamic (Sunni in particular) state and our culture is being destroyed. Scientists and artists are ridiculed routinely by the politicians in power. They destroyed Turkish Academy of Sciences. They shut down Feza Gürsey institute. They fired majority of people who made Pardus GNU/Linux distribution and Göktürk satellite from TÜBİTAK.

Unfortunately, this is no joke.

Yes, obviously. What did you imagine it was? Something mind-numbingly ignorant like "they hate us for our freedoms"?

I sincerely doubt the sum total of human misery caused by the government in Singapore will ever exceed that caused by that of the North Korean government.

This article is grossly misleading. Papers and televisions are showing what is going on, one can read from internet, and express his opinion. Turkey is a democracy with multi party system similar to France since 1946. Unfortunately the minority group who held the power in Turkey for decades lost their control of most of the government and state after years of corruption with 2002 elections. In 2001 Turkish economy experienced a similar economic meltdown after a "soft" coup of the people who support and make the current demonstrations. The economic repercussions was so deep it effected almost everyone similar to what has been going on in Greece and Spain. Since then the new government handled economy and democratic process so well, even in the current terrible economic situation of the world Turkey managed to become the fastest growing economy in Europe. Turkey has made the last debt payment to IMF couple of weeks ago. For the first time her existence Turkish economy's credit rating became investment grade by Moody's on May 17th this year[1]. Most importantly the clash with the Kurdish minority ended with a new peace process. This is by far the most important achievement of the current government given the 30 years of history of violence in South Easy of Turkey. Over 40K people have died since it started in 1980.

The person who wrote this article and those demonstrators are hoping to show their anger towards the government akin to Egypt's Tahrir Square demonstrations. However this is all reading it backwards. Current government is popularly supported by the people and the support has increased with each consecutive poll since 2002, leading to 50% [3] of the popular vote the last time. This government is leading a commission and effort to write a new constituition to raise the standards of human rights in Turkey. This is one of the biggest selling point to end the Kurdish violence since they now feel their rights will be protected better in the future. Current constitution is put together in 1980 by the people who engineered the last "hard" coup in Turkey [5], a coup literally executed with brute force, guns and tanks. With this government the efforts to get into EU increased tremendously [6] and actually it has been their strategy to balance the power in Turkey against Military's long standing anti-democratic ambitions and practices.

Recent demonstrations at a park in Istanbul got bigger by exploiting the grossly wrong police brutality. Unfortunately where there is demonstration be it in US [7], Spain [8] or Greece [9], in any country the police is very heavy handed. Otherwise the park that is in middle of the city is part of project [10] that will transform the area and close all the motor vehicle traffic and allow only pedestrians. This is going to be done by diverting traffic to underground roads that will be build as part of the project. Decision for the project taken by the people who was elected including members both from ruling and opposition party, and was voted unanimously.

Author of this article and those demonstrators are supporting the old regime. A regime that dictates certain ideology build around a cult leader like the ones in former Soviet Union, China and North Korea. Ours is Ataturk. You have to think like them, act like them, speak like them, live like them. During my mandatory military service I was forced to memorize who is Ataturk which was a list of 10 items that goes like this: 1) Ataturk was the best person in the world 2) Ataturk was best statesman in the world 3) Ataturk is the best military leader in the world. And thise list goes on and on...

Let me give you an example of what this people againts. Can you buy liquor after certain hours in States? Can you walk with an open beer can, alcohol bottle? No, because in States, varying by state, shops can not sell alcohol after 10pm or 2am. For example in England even places where liquor served as part of the service has to close by 1am. When this government made a similar, banning sale of alchol from 10pm to 6am, these people made a big noise. This is one of the arguments they have been telling during these demonstrations.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-16/turkey-raised-to-in... [2] http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/25/turkey-justice-central-ku... [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13740147 [4] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-10/turkey-s-kurtulmus-... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d%C3%A9tat [6] http://www.cfr.org/turkey/turkeys-eu-bid/p8939 [7] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/UC-Davis-pepper-spraye... [8] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/29/spain-riot-polic... [9] http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-police-brutality-2011-6 [10] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opean5HeR-8