Turkey: protests keep their numbers and spirit, police attacks at night

Protests have continued today in Turkey, with demonstrations going on for hours in Istanbul (best covered city) even before the massive meeting at Taksim was scheduled to take place.

Similarly in Ankara, after a day of peaceful protests, with tens of thousands gathered in Kugulu Park, police has begun their attacks against the citizens concentrated at Kizilay Square with tear gas and water cannons. As result the concentration moved to Dikimen (also in Ankara).

In Adana, a major port to the South of the state, police had barricaded the streets as of 21:45 local time, preparing to attack the uprising population.

Martyrs

So far only two mortal victims have been confirmed among demonstrators (some initial reports were more alarming). They are Mehmet Ayvalıtaş and Abdullah Cömert.

Mehmet, 19, was murdered by a fascist cab driver who run over him with his car on June 3rd, Abdullah, 22, was shot dead by a policeman using rubber bullets. He was dramatically determined to fight for freedom in his country, as we mentioned earlier.

Policemen are killing themselves

At least six policement have shot themselves since these riots began, denounced the police union, blaming the extreme conditions they are enduring, doing overtime day after day, of as much as 120 hrs without stop, sleeping on their shields or on cardboard pieces like homeless people, not getting adequate food and suffering the counter-attacks of protesters, who are hating them more and more.

Erasmus students assume compromise with the Turkish Revolution

In spite of the risks that imply for them and their careers, several dozens of students within the Erasmus program, from Europe and Egypt, have publicly declared their compromise to spread the word about what is happening in Turkey, defeating bourgeois censorship. 

Working class profile of the uprising

Olga Rodríguez explains[es] that this revolt is not only about middle class secularist youths, irritated by the Islamist involution, much less about alcohol. 

She puts the example of Ümaniye, a worker neighborhood in the Asian side of Istanbul, where 10,000 people set up barricades just a few days ago. That is not "middle class". It was in Ümaniye where a car killed Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, a manufacture worker and, apparently, member of the Anonymous-linked cell Red Hack, which recently revealed the names of 35,000 Mossad personnel. Red Hack has suffered inquisitorial persecution in Turkey (as many other mostly harmless organizations) on the farcical grounds of "terrorism".

Another point she raises is the police state that Turkey actually is under a thin varnish of "democracy". Turkish police is infamous for its brutality and as a point example, in a single night in Ankara 441 people were injured, 15 of them remaining in critical condition. 

Rodríguez also explains that Erdogan wants to become Turkey's Putin. He wants to run for the Presidency next year and concentrate all power in his hands, something that seems most unlikely to happen anymore.

A key point of discontent is, as we have already mentioned, the dramatic privatization policies of Erdogan and the AKP (telecommunications, airlines, tobacco companies, electric network, banks, public lands, highways... and even the water). In fact the Gezi Park controversy that sparked the uprising was yet another mafioso sellout of Turkish collective property, which was (is still as of now) to benefit relatives and personal friends of Erdogan at the expense of society. 

The relative economic stability of the country, with the fastest growth rate of Europe, has not benefited at all the popular classes but just concentrated the wealth within a small oligarchy. In 2011 the 20% richer segment had more than 50% of all wealth, while the 20% poorer had only 6%. 

There is anyhow some fear of military intervention. Erdogan has purged the ranks of the Army, traditionally secularist and Kemalist. Left wing organizations would not trust such an exit, which is more and more considered an option. 

Sources: Occupied Taksim (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4), Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2).