ISTANBUL (CNN)—Protesters seething over their treatment by security forces hurled rocks at riot police in Ankara’s Kizilay Square on Monday, the latest in a string of violent clashes that have punctuated massive anti-government demonstrations spreading across Turkey — leaving thousands injured and at least one dead in the past two days alone.
The protests united demonstrators from across the political spectrum against a common foe: security forces who unleashed tear gas and water cannons on them in response to what had been largely peaceful protests against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“There has been unprecedented violence against protesters and social protest,” demonstrator Neslihan Ozgunes said Monday.
The Turkish Medical Association claimed that at least 3,195 people had been injured in clashes Sunday and Monday. Only 26 of them were in serious or critical condition, it said. One protester, Mehmet Ayvalitas, died of his injuries, the association said.
The association reported bulk of the injuries occurred in Istanbul, where the protests began before spreading to Ankara, Izmir, Adana and other locations.
International groups including Amnesty International have criticized the police response as excessive.
In Ankara Sunday night, a CNN crew witnessed authorities roughing up at least one protester. One police officer kicked a CNN videographer, CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reported. A CNN crew in Istanbul Sunday also witnessed bloodied protesters.
Erdogan responded Monday by dismissing the demonstrations as the work of “extreme elements” and the complaints of brutality as baseless.
“We are servants of the people, not masters. We did not use violence,” he said before leaving for a four-day trip to North Africa.
But Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, took a somewhat more conciliatory tone Monday, saying “the messages sent in good faith have been received.”
“When we talk about a democracy we of course mean the expression of the will of the people in electing the leaders of the country. But democracy does not just mean elections,” he said. “It is natural that outside of elections if there are differing opinion, situations or objections that they be voiced. And peaceful protests are a part of that.”
The protests began after plans were made to raze Gezi Park, the last green space in central Istanbul, and replace it with a replica of 19th-century Ottoman barracks. The development would contain a shopping mall.
What began as a sit-in by a handful of angry residents quickly grew into a larger protest. Riot police moved in, using tear gas and pepper spray.
Protesters responded by hurling bottles, setting up barricades, blocking bulldozers and burning trash in the middle of the street.
Then, outraged by the behavior of security forces, demonstrators began attacking police.
The protests have since morphed into larger complaints against Erdogan, whom protesters say is paternalistic and authoritarian.
“This park was just the ignition of all that,” said Yakup Efe Tuncay, a 28-year-old demonstrator who carried a Turkish flag while walking through the park Saturday.
“The Erdogan government is usually considered as authoritarian. He has a big ego; he has this Napoleon syndrome. He takes himself as a sultan. … He needs to stop doing that,” Tuncay said. “He’s just a prime minister.”
In Istanbul, the crowds have been chanting “Tayyip resign” — referring to Erdogan — and “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism.”
[Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where the protests are centered, is not a retail place or simply green space, but holy land – home to the 16th Century Pangalti Armenian Cemetery, stolen, desecrated and then demolished by the Republic of Turkey in the 1930s].
The protests have spread to 67 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, according to the semi-official Anadolou News Agency.
On Monday, a confederation of unions claiming some 240,000 members added its voice to the anti-Erdogan chorus, saying it would go on strike against what it called the “fascism” of Erdogan’s ruling party.
On Monday, Erdogan said opponents who had failed to defeat his party in elections were trying to beat it “by other means.”
“The issue of trees in Gezi Park thing is just the trigger,” he said.
A day earlier, he praised his accomplishments overseeing a decade of unprecedented economic growth in Turkey. He also defended his record as a leader who has planted many trees.
“They are putting on airs saying we massacre trees,” he said. “We have planted approximately 2 billion trees.”
He also downplayed claims that Turkey could be on the cusp of its own “Arab Spring” — the series of popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East that led to political upheaval in Tunisia and Egypt, particularly.
“Those in Turkey who speak of the Turkish Spring are right; the season is, in fact, spring,” he said. “But there are those trying to turn it into a winter.”
Asli Aydintasbas, a columnist for Milliyet Newspaper, said Erdogan is the most powerful and popular politician Turkey has seen in generations. But his approach to leadership doesn’t sit well with all Turks, she said.
“We have a prime minister who has done great deeds and he really has run the economy well,” she said. “But you also have this paternalistic style: ‘I know what’s good for you. I, as your father, can decide on the park, the bridge, the city and the constitution.’ So, I think people are just wanting to have a more inclusive form of democracy in Turkey.”
Hugh Pope, a senior Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group, called the protests “completely unprecedented.”
He said Erdogan was caught off guard by them. Most demonstrators, Pope said, are “overwhelmingly ordinary people” who simply want their voices heard.
“However there are other demonstrators who are somewhat more opportunistic in the left-wing factions who normally don’t get much in the way of airtime in Turkey and are camped on Taksim square,” Pope said.
“They have outposts where they are delivering their message, and in fact it has to be said that they are sometimes on the front line of the protestors in the fights against the police at the barricades,” he said.
Erdogan’s chief adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, said Saturday that the protesters have a right to express their discontent, within limits.
“People are entitled to disagreement with the government; they can exercise their democratic rights, but they can do so within the context of a democratic society,” he said.
I am glad to see Arab Spring is coming to Turkey, at the same time I want to see the U.S. position about the current crisis in Turkey.
Syria should return the Turks the favor now and support the rebels and form a “Free Turkish Army”.
My enemy’s enemy is my favorite dictator doesn’t cut it. Try to be equally fair. The Syrian regime has caused terror and destruction to the region especially Lebanon and Iraq. Be objective before taking a position.
I don’t believe it….the hoi polio of turkey,finally realizing,they been mislead by hitler looking erogotz,camel attaturkey,.and other physchos,of inhuman behavior,towards their minorities.Bribery,goes so far,the stooges repent and people will quit treating you as a cancer,of society.I still don’t believe it.
Their country is a de facto military dictatorship. Not surprisingly, every effort is taken there to disguise it as a democracy.
Every Armenian Knows Very Well
Where is The Taxsim Square
The Site for the First Genocide
The skeletons are awakened
With their tongues…With their souls
After one hundred decades
To tell the world,
Taxsim square has owners
Was the largest Armenian Cemetery
You the Turks
You the invaders…killers…rapist…thieves
Build your parks…your homes on our cemeteries…
Without caring for the human skulls underneath…
Without paying a penny…
After millennium…the souls started re-breathing
Revolutions against Tatars are clear…
No-one will stop…
Till the lands goes to the real owners…
The Ancient Armenians…!
You gencided 1.5 million…
and millions since 11th century
Collecting the honest literates from Taqsim square
to slay them…on 24th April 1915…
Do you think you carry genes of humanity…?
Never…Never
You are beasts…worse than devils…
Your Spring-Summer will flood with blood…
In every spot you collected Armenians
And slayed innocents by your scimitars
Thus no one will visit so called…your falsified paradise
Which belonged to Bizantine…To Armenians…
The land of Cicilia (Kilikia) full of fortresses and domes
You invaded transfered to ruins…Now you claim…it’s yours …
You modified half of the 2600 churches to mosques…
and the other half you destroyed to remove the Armenian cause.
Kept Aya Sofia to earn income
from the sweat of those who build it
I wonder…Is there one god to see
what you and your nation has done…!!!
Sylva-MD-Poetry
June 4, 2013
sylva how we will stop westerner european or middle-eastern armenians who is go istanbul for touristic trip and paying money hagia sophia to see inside ?
Sylvia, your statement is doing a disservice to Turkish scholars and academics who are condeming and condoning genocide denial. What about scholars like Ungor, Gocek, Akcam, Zarakolu, Shafak, Pamuk and others who are slowly trying to make things right with our community? We should only direct our anger towards the Genocide-denying low life cowards instead.
Sylva-MD-Poetry, I love the way you put it. We, all Armenians, all Christians suffered from the Creation of the ottoman Empire till this current Turkey. I wonder why Europe and the US keep Turkey in NATO?
i wonder what obama has to say about the way his good buddy erdogan is treating his citizens. kind of makes you want to vomit, to think that that degenerate stood on the white house steps and was welcomed with open arms on US soil.