from Hacker News

What is happening in İstanbul?

by ekurutepe on 6/2/13, 8:56 PM with 36 comments

  • by fatihdonmez on 6/3/13, 8:15 AM

    It started as a civilian resistance for excessive police force. Unique and special part of this movement was political distribution of people in it. Erdogan's party rule 3'rd times the government. At this point they changed from independent, democrat, liberal party to totaliter one. So people in the movement is consist of multiple former Akp (Erdogan's party) supporter, too. That's why it should be important for Erdogan. But instead he's arguing that most of them provoked by other forces so ignoring. But now, 3'rd day of activity, it changed from civilian movement to anarchist, provokative anti-governmental and mostly illegal movements. That's why now people should calm down. Because initial point of movement succeed it's purpose. Park is safe (court decision), police is off the Taksim Square.

    ps: i'm talkin as person who was in activity actually and hurted by police brutality. #direngeziparki

  • by eknkc on 6/3/13, 11:05 AM

    I've been there in Ankara protests last 2 days / nights.

    I have several light burns around my body. Got hit by a gas canister. Seen people shot down with plastic bullets and got sprayed with an orange liquid that burns like hell.

    The PM says social media is a damnation of god and we had several outages of twitter and facebook.

    Meanwhile, CNN Turk shows penguin documentaries.

  • by mc-lovin on 6/3/13, 8:59 AM

    While I'm glad that people from Turkey are voicing there opinions here, I think there is also danger in being too credulous. The people who use English speaking social media are not necessarily representative of the whole population and the fact that people are able to spread their message on social media doesn't make them right.

    I am still waiting to see confirmation of the existence of a media blackout in Turkey by the mainstream media, and the more general claims about the current regime are even harder to judge for an outsider.

  • by DocG on 6/3/13, 10:10 AM

    Uh, I am moving there at the end of the summer. That is pretty much last thing I want to see at the moment. I am hoping they manage to finish this thing before.

    Although, I would prefer Turkey to be peaceful, I do understand and agree with these protest.

    If there happens the worst case scenario and real revolution, does anyone have info, how safe it is after that usually?

  • by lifeguard on 6/3/13, 3:49 PM

  • by rdmirza on 6/2/13, 10:50 PM

    Great idea, I was trying to figure out the story! I've read there's been an internal blackout -- the turkish media isn't covering the event.

  • by zi on 6/3/13, 5:53 AM

    Might check out 57un's twitter feed. Lot of info on this.

    https://twitter.com/57un

  • by alpb on 6/3/13, 1:37 AM

    Thanks for covering this @ekurutepe.

  • by _nato_ on 6/3/13, 1:51 AM

    Is Gezi Park a _public_ or _private_ park?

  • by pixie_ on 6/3/13, 3:14 AM

    Pretty sure if Turkey falls we'll end up with a new Islamic caliphate in the next 10 years. Who doesn't see one sweeping over this shattered region. For 90% of its history (600 to 1900) the middle east has been under a single empire or another. What we should really be afraid of is some kind of galvanizing leader or force to come out of this.