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istanbul
Amidst the Guns, Free Choice for Crimeans
'Everywhere is Resistance': Turkey Protests Flare Following Death of Teen
Tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Istanbul Wednesday to mourn the death of Berkin Elvan, 15, whose death followed 269 days in a coma after having sustained a blow to the head by a tear gas canister fired by police.
"Berkin's murderers are the AKP police," said the protesters in reference to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), whose policies have sparked mass unrest in the country.
"The rage of mothers will suffocate the killers," some yelled outside the site of Elvan's funeral. The crowds chanted, "Tayyip! Killer!" and "Everywhere is Berkin, everywhere is resistance" while many held up photos of Elvan.
The funeral followed a night of protests and clashes which spread to 32 towns and cities across the country upon the announcement of Elvan's death. The protests maintained the same anti-AKP sentiment of last year's mass protests, which drew international attention and gained momentum in the face of the police's heavy-handed tactics. Roughly 2.5 million people took part in those protests which were sparked over the course of three weeks in June, demanding Erdogan's resignation. Over 8,000 people were injured, according to medics.
"It's not God who took my son away but Prime Minister Erdogan," Elvan's mother told reporters on Tuesday.
"How many young people have to die for Erdogan to resign? My only wish is for this fascism to end without spilling more blood," said retired worker Atilla Izmirlioglu.
Heavy-handed police tactics showed no sign of easing Wednesday, as police fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters in the capital Ankara and reports of similar clashes in Istanbul and other cities surfaced on social media following the funeral.
Erdogan has vowed to step down if the AKP loses power in upcoming local elections scheduled for March 30th. On the campaign trail Wednesday Erdogan addressed a rally in the city of Siirt but did not mention Elvan's death and referred to last year's protests as a coalition of "anarchists, terrorists and vandals."
However those in the street rejected Erdogan's sentiment. "The lack of compassion, the polarizing attitude of the prime minister and the fact that he behaves like an autocrat is what brought us here," one protester told Reuters at Wednesday's funeral.
Tweets about "#turkey OR #BerkinElvan OR #OccupyGezi OR #DirenGezi lang:en"
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"I was brutally assaulted by Egyptian police, who never said what I was being accused of," said Benjamin from Istanbul, where she arrived after being deported. "When the authorities came into the cell to deport me, two men threw me to the ground, stomped on my back, pulled my shoulder out of its socket and handcuffed me so that my injured arm was twisted around and my wrists began to bleed. I was then forced to sit between the two men who attacked me on the plane ride from Cairo to Istanbul, and I was (and still am) in terrible pain the whole time."
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Turkish Police Use Force to Break Up Internet Protest
Turkish police fired volleys of tear gas and used water cannons to disperse large crowds of protesters Saturday rallying in central Istanbul against new "draconian" internet laws passed to stifle dissent and stop evidence of high-level corruption being seen online..
The new bill was passed late Wednesday by the Turkish parliament which is dominated by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party.
"Everywhere is bribery, everywhere is corruption," the crowd chanted, a variation of an anti-government slogan used by demonstrators in protests across the country last summer.
The legislation would give authorities the power to block web pages without a court order within just hours. It would also require internet service providers (ISPs) to store data on their clients' online activities for two years and provide it to the authorities on request.
The government says the internet "reform" is aimed at "protecting individual privacy."
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