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For full article text, please visit: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/turkeys-erdogan-vs-the-protests-4825/ Turkey’s Erdogan vs. the Protests By: Brenna Owen June 17th, 2013 Chaos has reigned in Turkey since the brutal eviction of a sit-in at Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park in May. The sit-in had originally been organized to protest the proposed demolition of the park and reconstruction of a historic military barracks in its place. Demonstrators occupied the park for several days before being uprooted by police forces using tear gas and making violent arrests. After the area was initially cleared, however, protestors returned to the park and nearby Taksim Square. On June 11th, police moved in to suppress the protestors once more; undercover officers threw Molotov cocktails, while those in uniform used tear gas and water cannons. The violent dispersal of the sit-in at Taksim Gezi Park has served as a catalyst for widespread demonstrations across Turkey, but these protestors’ concerns extend far beyond police brutality. The government’s harsh response to the sit-in, which was begun by a group of local environmentalists, prompted protests over a wide spectrum of domestic issues, such as authoritarian politics, infringements on the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, and government encroachment on Turkish secularism. Thousands of Turkish lawyers vocally opposed the violent treatment of protestors in Taksim Square and across the country, and a number have been detained by Turkish police for staging protests of their own outside a courthouse. Events in Turkey so far bear somewhat of a resemblance to the so-called ‘Arab Spring,’ the wave of revolutions and uprisings that swept the Middle East, from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, beginning in late 2010. During the Tunisian revolution, news of vegetable vendor’s self-immolation quickly spread across the country via social media. In Turkey, social media has also been used by demonstrators for organizational purposes and to broadcast developments to the world in real time. Similar to the case in Tunisia where one local event triggered a national movement, the suppression of the Taksim Gezi Park sit-in was the catalyst that caused protests to erupt across Turkey. In Egypt, citizens initially took to the streets to protest a lack of adequate government services; they never dreamt that in a matter of weeks, long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak would relinquish power. Similarly in Turkey, protests against police brutality have transformed into opposition against the increasing authoritarianism of Prime Minister Erdogan. Since Erdogan assumed power in 2003, the quality of Turkey’s democracy has been persistently called into question. There is a “climate of fear” among journalists in Turkey, many of whom have been arrested and jailed under Erdogan. There have also been crackdowns on Kurds, a long-oppressed minority in Turkey. For full article text, please visit: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/turkeys-erdogan-vs-the-protests-4825/