Thousands Gather At Taksim Square While Workers March In Istanbul ,
100 Intellectuals Express Concern
By Countercurrents.org
30 June, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Peace and Democracy deputies joined the workers' march. DHA photo
As part of continuing protest against the Islamist Erdogan government thousands of protesters gathered at Taksim Square on June 29 to denounce the government's response to the Gezi Park protests, a week after another demonstration was quelled with water cannons and tear gas. Police assaulted a protest near Ankara University . In an area in Ankara , police-protesters clashes are breaking out almost every night. In Istanbul , workers and political activists marched protesting the clashes and killing of a protester in Lice. Taksim protesters are signing legal documents taking responsibility of the protest.
Media reports from Turkey said:
The demonstration at Taksim Square was carried out peacefully and most of the protesters dispersed after a couple of hours following the police's warning.
Riot police pushed the remaining protesters away from the square with shields and slow moving water cannon trucks but no water was fired. Announcements were made for protesters to return to their homes.
As some of the protesters remained in the surroundings of the Taksim area police entered the side streets in pursuit of them. Over 10 protestors were detained.
Security forces also cordoned off the entrances to the Istiklal Avenue, where intense clashes took place in previous weeks. Witnesses said police also used rubber bullets.
Accepting full responsibility
Earlier, the Taksim Solidarity Platform called on protesters to report themselves to prosecutors to sign petitions in which they would take full responsibility for their participation in the demonstrations. “We will gather in front of the Çaglayan Courthouse to hand the petitions that say ‘We are here and we are taking the whole responsibility,'" a spokesman for the platform said in a statement.
Many protesters had also gathered to protest the killing of a demonstrator by security forces in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir 's Lice district. Many protesters chanted slogans in support for Lice.
Assault in Ankara
Police used tear gas and water cannons to quell a group of 250 protesters gathered at Kurtulus Park , near Ankara University . Police chased the group inside the park and many bystanders were affected by the gas.
The group had denounced the killing of Ethem Sarisülük, a demonstrator in Ankara who was shot by police during the Gezi protests.
The Gezi Park protests in Ankara over the last month were among those most brutally repressed by the police. Tension also escalated in the Dikmen neighborhood, where clashes between police and protesters break out almost every night.
Workers-activists march
Public sector workers joined members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in a peaceful march through Istanbul 's Istiklal Avenue to protest the killing of a demonstrator by the security forces in the southeastern Diyarbakir province on June 28, 2013. Clashes broke out in Diyarbakir 's Lice district between soldiers and demonstrating villagers who were denouncing the construction of a gendarmerie outpost.
The group held banners reading, "We don't want outposts but peace" and "Resist Lice, resist Gezi Park ." BDP deputies Sirri Süreyya Önder, who was also very active during the early Gezi Park protests, and Sabahat Tuncel also participated in the march.
Protestors also held posters of Medeni Yildirim, the 18-year-old victim of the Lice clashes.
Önder said: “Civilians expressing their outcry in a peaceful way were fired upon. All their wounds were on their back. Peace won't come this way.”
He also said that there were many parallelisms between the social demands of Gezi Park protesters and Kurdish people.
Tuncel also slammed the attempt of building outposts, saying that it reminded the Kurdish people of torture and death.
"The ruling Justice and Development party should remove the commander of the gendarmerie station and do what's right. You didn't understand Gezi Park , and if you don't understand Lice you will be unable to cope with the [peace] process," Tuncel said.
Turkish security forces had opened fire killing 18-year-old Medeni Yildirim and wounding ten others during a demonstration against the construction of a new gendarmerie outpost in the Kayacik village in Lice1.
Sergeant kidnapped
Meanwhile, a gendarmerie sergeant was kidnapped by militants in Lice, hours after clashes between villagers and soldiers left one dead and 10 wounded.
The officer was driving through the main road linking Diyarbakir to Bingöl, when he was stopped in a checkpoint installed by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) near Kayacik village.
The sergeant's car was found burned on June 29 near a forested land.
100 Turkish intellectuals voice concern
The dean of Turkish literature, Yasar Kemal is among the signatories. DHA photo
A hundred Turkish intellectuals have expressed concern over the polarization of society during the recent tensions, especially due to the Gezi Park protests."To prevent further grievances, we the undersigned demand an end to hatespeech, an end to the targeting of artists and works of art and an end to social oppression," the statement, issued as an advertisement, read.
Artists with very different political views signed the common statement, including Nobel laureate writer Orhan Pamuk, renowned writer Yasar Kemal, directors Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Sirri Süreyya Önder, who is also a deputy for BDP, poets Ataol Behramoglu and Bejan Matur, photographer Ara Güler and pianist Fazil Say.
The signatories said that discourse based on the distinction of "us and them" was creating otherness and "sowing the seeds of hatred in society."
"There is a smell of anger and hate in the air yet again. Attempts to derogate, target, defame, accuse and oppress art and artists continue persistently. The 'US & Them' discourse is sharpening social polarization," the statement also said.
The advert was published in a number of mainstream national newspapers.
The signed the statement
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