The world is in an uproar, danger zone is everywhere…
— Ray Charles
All weekend, I have been receiving constant Facebook updates by Gokce, one of my Istanbul friends and family from the International Body Music Festival.
As much as he can, Gokce and his partner Ayse have been providing a blow-by-blow account on the state of Istanbul as it undergoes yet another day of mass demonstration, dissent and police brutality, today marking the sixth day of protest across the city. At the center of it is Taksim Square, one of Istanbul’s cultural hearts and a symbol of modern day secular Turkey founded under Ataturk. It is a 15 minute walk from their house.
Events began Monday, May 27, as a peaceful demonstration of resistance — an “Occupy Gezi” movement. The Erdogan government had usurped all legal processes to turn the last of Istanbul’s green spaces — Gezi Park — into a shopping mall.
Seventy protesters gathered to stop the bulldozers from beginning work. On the second day of resistance, demonstrators were met with police brutality far exceeding that of the excesses of police at Zuccotti Park and Oakland’s Oscar Grant Plaza. Over 1,000 protesters have been hospitalized for concussions caused by tear gas canisters and water cannons fired directly at their heads. The death count is still not clear, and the state news media blackout has ceased the flow of information over broader traditional networks. As of this moment, the Turkish people are in a news blackout.