“Everywhere is Taksim, Everywhere is Resistance!”
May 1, 2013
Members and supporters of the People’s Front, were in the neighborhoods, squares, and streets of the country, working to organize and involve millions of people in the struggle. With the strength of the 550,000-strong sea of people that formed on Bakırköy Square, at the concert “Independent Turkey” of revolutionary music band Grup Yorum, held in mid-April, tens of thousands of people filled the streets leading to Taksim Square in their attempt to retake May Day Square.
The provincial governor appointed by the AKP, citing construction work in Taksim Square as a pretext, had banned all demonstrations there. The fascist oligarchy wanted to detachTaksim Square from its historical roots, to erase everything that linked this place to the struggle for revolution. The celebration of May 1, in Taksim Square, was forbidden! On that day, transport in Istanbul was stopped completely, the bridges of Halic Bay (Golden Horn) were lifted. Entry into the city was under police control. What was happening was, in effect, an undeclared state of emergency. All these measures were unable to stop the people, people gathered at the previously announced assembly points and headed to the square.
At first, the police only attacked the marching, firing tear gas grenades, then they started attacking even people walking in pairs on the streets. They doused people with water cannons mixed with various chemicals causing suffocation and even burns. But despite all this, the people, together with members and supporters of the People’s Front, fought street by street for Taksim Square. The People’s Front militants turned the streets of Istanbul into hell under the sky for the AKP policemen. Student Meral Dönmez, a member of the Revolutionary Youth Federation(Dev-Genç), was shot in the head with a tear gas grenade during the clashes in the Okmeydanı neighborhood. In the area of Tarlabaşıboulevard, high school student Dilan Alp was also shot with a tear gas grenade.
A total of 6 people were hit with tear gas grenades by police during the street clashes on May 1 in Istanbul. For days, those wounded by tear gas grenades remained in comas around the metropolis’ hospitals. Hundreds of people were wounded by rubber bullets, dozens had broken legs and arms as a result of the beatings inflicted on them by the fascist oligarchy’s police. But despite all the attacks, the street fighting that day continued into the evening hours.
“We will not recognize the ban you imposed on Taksim Square!”
2 May – 26 May 2013
The People’s Resistance, and the street clashes with the police on May 1, over Taksim Square, had seriously frightened the AKP government. The Istanbul Provincial Governor, again using the construction work as a pretext, imposed a ban on all demonstrations and protests on Taksim Square, and the Istiklal Avenue. Subsequently, the ban was extended to the spaces in front of the courts, prisons, and the forensic medicine institute. But the prime minister, without flinching, began to say in his televised statements that the ban aimed to completely block Taksim Square for any demonstrations. Almost at the same time, fans of the Istanbul football team Galatasaray, completely undisturbed, were celebrating the team’s victory, in the Turkish football league, not wherever, but in Taksim Square. In the days that followed, the protests and marches held by the workers of Hey-Tekstil, and the Front of Artists and Intellectuals(Sanat Cephesi), as well as all other democratic protest actions, were attacked by the police with tear gas grenades.
“The merchants of Istiklal Avenue, are unhappy with the holding of protests in this place. Do you want someone protesting outside your door? Protests can only be held where we say, we will not allow it elsewhere!” the prime minister told the media.
Revolutionary organizations, including the People‘s Front, responded to these words of Erdogan with the slogan: “We will not recognize the ban you imposed on Taksim Square!”
So they began to hold almost continuous protest actions in Taksim Square and the area around it. Members of the Popular Front started to raise the slogan “Tear gas must be banned!” more and more often in the squares, because this gas was used by the oligarchy to maim and kill the people.
On 18 May, the march held on Istiklal Avenue, in memory of the revolutionary leader Ibrahim Kaipakkaya, who died as a result of torture in Diyarbakir prison, in 1973, was attacked by the police. Even the smallest protest action on Istiklal Avenue was attacked by the police with tear gas grenades, and the whole area was gassed. Every day the boulevard was occupied by thousands of policemen. By placing Taksim under police blockade, the fascist oligarchy was trying to close the square to any protests expressing the demands of the people.
The police of the fascist oligarchy dozens of times, attacked with water jets mixed with poisonous chemicals and tear gas grenades the tent camp of the protesters in front of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, whose main demand was that the seriously ill political prisoner Mete Dish be released.
The fascist oligarchy’s police, watched from the sidelines without taking, any action, while the Islamists of the so-called “Foundation for Humanitarian Aid and Human Rights” hold a protest in front of the Çağlayan courthouse in Istanbul. But when the People’s Front held a protest in the same place, it was immediately attacked with tear gas grenades and water cannons. After May 1, absolutely every day, Grup Yorum, the Association for Mutual Aid and Solidarity of the Families of Political Prisoners(TAYAD), the Revolutionary Youth Federation, the Associations for Rights and Freedoms, the Association of Progressive Lawyers(ÇHD), held protest actions, and every action was attacked without any exception by the police. Our people watched the attacks on these protests and were rising their anger…
27 May 2013- Monday
The AKP government, with all its force, was implementing its plan to transform Taksim Square. Around 10:00 pm, construction equipment entered Gezi Park. In a short time, the people gathered in the park, and managed to stop the construction activities, and started to be on duty around the clock in shifts, in the park.
28 May 2013 – Tuesday
To continue the demolition of the park, municipal guards, police, and construction company mercenaries armed with clubs invaded the park. They had no official documents giving them the right to make any changes to the park. They attacked the people with tear gas. Although the crowd had dispersed at the beginning, the people reassembled in front of the Divan Hotel, where they began to stand vigil. Eventually, the construction work had to be stopped again. People began to set up tents in the park to stand vigil against any further demolition attempts.
29 May 2013 – Wednesday
During the ceremony for the start of the construction of the third bridge over the Bosphorus, which was named “Yavuz Sultan Selim” known from history as the mass murderer of people of the Alevite confession, by then-President Abdullah Gül, about the events in Gezi Park, the then Prime Minister Erdogan said the following, “Do what you want, we have taken our decision!”
30 May 2013 – Thursday
“Operation Dawn”, the fascist oligarchy’s police, attacked with tear gas grenades the people who were on vigil and sleeping in tents, in Gezi Park. In the morning dusk, people were pushed out of the park, with tear gas grenades and beaten with batons. The excavators continued to work. But the determination of the people not to leave the protest site stopped the excavation work, so in the evening hours, tens of thousands of people gathered in Gezi Park and the space around it.
31 May 2013 – Friday
The fascist oligarchy’s police organized “Operation Dawn” for the second time and attacked the people resisting in Gezi Park. The park was completely occupied by the police and was surrounded by metal barriers. Violent attacks continued against the people holding sit-in protests on Taksim Square. Police directed water cannons at people’s faces, firing tear gas grenades, targeting the heads, backs, and stomachs of protesters. The police beat anyone they could catch and abandoned them to their fate on side streets. In the area of Taksim Square, the first street clashes began. With marches, residents of the Asian (eastern) part of Istanbul expressed their support for the Gezi Park protesters.
The members and sympathizers of the People’s Front were with the people wherever they were, at every barricade. In Istanbul and Ankara, the police started using rubber bullets. As a result, in Ankara, one man lost his eye. The street shootings around Taksim continued throughout the night. In the resort town of Bodrum, the first solidarity action with the Gezi Park protests took place on May 31, at 19:00(local time), in the square in front of the municipality, with several hundred people gathered. In the town of Kocaeli (about 120 kilometers east of Istanbul), a group of protesters marching to the local headquarters of the ruling AKP were attacked by police with tear gas grenades.
1 June 2013 – Saturday
The clashes around Taksim Square continued without interruption, the people took to the streets not only in Istanbul but in the rest of Turkey, as well as in many countries of Europe and other continents. In the area around Taksim Square, on Istiklal, Tarlabaşı, Harbiye and Gümüşsuyu avenues, tens of thousands of people resisted the police throughout the night despite fierce attacks with gas grenades. Half an hour after the then Prime Minister Erdogan, said that “the police will stay there permanently”, at around 15:40 the police, who had reached a stalemate in the face of the people’s resistance, found the solution by withdrawing from the square, but what withdrawal was that only – they were fleeing.
Members and sympathizers of the Popular Front, destroying one by one the barricades along Istiklal, Tarlabaşı, and Cumhuriyet boulevards, advanced towards the square along with the people. The AKP policemen, who had been brutally attacking the people for days, fled Taksim Square, abandoning their cars, helmets, and shields. Protests began in more than 60 provinces of Turkey. On 1 June – the people took over the square. The street clashes spread over a wide perimeter to the area around Dolmabahce Palace, located on the shore of the Bosphorus.
On the same day, in Ankara, during the ongoing clashes around the Council of Ministers, Ethem Sarasülük was seriously injured after being shot in the head with a pistol by police. On June 1, in the city of Adana (southern Turkey), thousands of people gathered in Ataturk Park and marched through the central part of the city.
In the town of Bodrum, police attacked the ever-growing crowd, using as a pretext the stones thrown at the building of the local headquarters of the ruling party AKP. Protesters responded to the police attack by using flares. 29 people were detained, 23 of whom were hospitalized, 2 of them in a serious condition as a result of the severe beating inflicted on them by the police and the multiple tear gas grenades thrown.
Thousands of people marched through the city of Erzincan, northern Kurdistan (north-eastern Turkey).
Tens of thousands of people gathered in the central square in the city of Kayseri, central Turkey. The crowd, marching to the local headquarters of the ruling party AKP, was attacked by police. 200 people were detained, with dozens of volunteer lawyers from the local bar association providing free legal aid to the detainees and their relatives. The same night, 5,000 residents of Istanbul’s 1 May district blocked the main D-100 road in both directions. The protests were not confined to the borders of Turkey. Demonstrations in solidarity with the protests were organized in many cities in Europe. A demonstration involving 250 people was held in Ciutadella Park in Barcelona, Spain. In London, solidarity demonstrations were held at 2-3 locations in the city. In the US city of San Francisco, 400 people took part in a demonstration.
2 June 2013 – Sunday
Pouring swear words and insults at the people, Tayyip Erdogan left the country. Declaring “We can barely keep our 50% electorate at home”, he began his four-day tour of North Africa.
Barricades were erected along all streets leading to Taksim Square. Setting up tent camps in the square and the park, people began to stand in vigil. With each passing hour, the barricades were strengthened and reinforced, filling the square with thousands of people.
On the same day, Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, a participant in the demonstrations in Istanbul’s 1 Mayıs neighborhood, was seriously injured and later died of his wounds. He thus became the 1st martyr of the uprising. Street clashes began to become violent and concentrated in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, and in particular in the area around the residence used as the Prime Minister’s office, during his visits to the city.
In the capital city Ankara, people marched towards the Council of Ministers and Tayyip Erdogan’s residence. People took over the central Kızılay Square and Kolej Square.
In many neighborhoods of Istanbul, protest marches began to organize. In the Gazi neighborhood, tens of thousands of people besieged the local police station, subjecting it to a rain of stones, the policemen could not even show themselves outside the windows. In some areas of the city, people marched to the buildings of the district governor‘s offices. Residents of Okmeydani headed to the local headquarters of the AKP. Members and sympathizers of the People’s Front were the initiators of most of the marches in the neighborhoods, and with the slogans they raised they channeled the anger of the people against the fascist government.
In the city of Eskişehir (about 350 kilometers east of Istanbul, translated), Ali Ismail Korkmaz, a participant in the demonstrations, was attacked in one of the cross streets in the central part of the city by a group of civilian policemen, nationalists, and Islamists, and severely beaten with batons. As a result of the beating, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fell into a coma. Security camera footage that captured the beating was later deleted by police.
In the city of Adana, the protests grew covering the neighborhoods of Ziya Paşa, Sular, Gazi Paşa, and the areas around Ataturk and Baraj Yolu boulevards.
In Erzincan province, northern Kurdistan(eastern Turkey), the People wrote the word Taksim, on mountain slopes, and in the pastures of towns and villages across the region. In the provincial center, preparations have begun for a major protest action against plans to build several hydroelectric power plants along the valley of the Gaban River, which rises from the Munzur Mountains, most of which falls within the encompassing national park of the same name. The river is one of the main water sources in the region.
On the same day, at around 20:30, members and supporters of the People’s Front organized a march from the Okmeydani neighborhood, to the local headquarters of the ruling party in Istanbul, located in the Sütlüdze neighborhood. Together with many residents of the nearby Örnektepe neighborhood, the march reached nearly 8,000 people.
In the city of Bursa, around 500 people, including members and supporters of the People’s Front, demonstrated in solidarity with the protests in Istanbul.
In the city of Dersim, NorthernKurdistan, after the power supply in the city was cut, at around 23:00, protests also started in the city. Initially, they took the form of banging pots and pans on the balconies and terraces of homes, later hundreds of people took to the streets and began marching to the city’s main shopping street from where they headed to the provincial police headquarters. The policemen saw the crowd of many thousands abandoned their positions and fled. The crowd managed to enter the police department courtyard, breaking the lights, cameras, and windows of the building. The protest that night involved 15,000 people and lasted until 02:30.
3 June – Monday
In Hatay province(southern Turkey, on the border with Syria), as a result of multiple blows to the head, died – Abdullah Cömert, so became the second martyr of the uprising. Street clashes continued across the country and were most violent in Adana, Eskişehir, Mersin, Izmir, and Bursa.
In the area of Dolmabahçe Palace, in Istanbul, after several days of clashes, the people almost managed to reach the entrance of the office used by the Prime Minister. While the people were revolting, the bourgeois media did not cover the protests in any way. The people held protest actions in front of the headquarters of the major TV channels in the country, expressing their indignation against the capitalist media. After these protests, they were forced to start covering the protests.
Students from the university in the city of Kocaeli gathered at one of the campuses of the institution and marched to the rector’s building, after overcoming the blockade set up by the private security company. At a meeting with the rector, they handed over their demands in a written form, which the rector was forced to accept.
In the Teleferik neighborhood of Bursa, nearly 1,000 people took part in a protest organized by the local People’s Committee, which was established on the initiative of the People’s Front in 2011. At the protest, the crowd set up a banner reading “Let us unite! We are Right, We Will Win!”
In the city of Adana, thousands of people gathered in Atatürk Park, from where they headed to the headquarters of the ruling party. There were street clashes with the police. Thousands of people from the neighborhoods of Adana came to the park to take part in the march.
In the capital city of Ankara, the clashes were concentrated in the central part of the city, in the area of Mithad Paşa Street, Sakarya Street, Kolej Square, and Kurtuluş neighborhood.
In Istanbul’s Altınşehir district, the people took to the streets while throwing stones at the local police station located on Bayramtepe Square, the crowd chanted “Killer cops get out of our neighborhood!”. People also damaged police vehicles parked in front of the station. 10,000 people took part in the protest.
Almost at the same time, thousands filled the streets of Istanbul’s Gazi district for another night. The protest, called at the call of the neighborhood’s People’s Committee, was attacked by police with tear gas grenades and shock grenades. People did not leave the space in front of the local police station, responding to the police with stones, Molotov cocktails, and firing metal pellets with hand-held catapults.
In the Seyrantepe neighborhood, the protest called by People’s Front, which began as a march of a hundred people, quickly grew as hundreds more joined in.
Around 21:00 local time, that evening, nearly 50,000 people marched through the streets of Istanbul‘s İkitelli neighborhood protesting against the fascist rule.
4 June 2013 – Tuesday
In the city of Antakya, Hatay province, thousands gathered on Ugur Mumcu avenue, where they chanted the slogan “Abdullah Cömert is Immortal!”. People from neighboring towns had come by buses to join the funeral of Abdullah Cömert, who had died during the protests a day earlier. All the merchants and artisans in the Armutlu neighborhood, where the young man was killed, closed their shops and workshops and came to send him on his last journey. Initially, the police did not want to hand over Abdullah’s body to his relatives, but after seeing that people had gathered around the hospital, they were forced to hand him over to the family. At 15:00 local time, the crowd headed to Abdullah Cömert’s home, in the Gazi neighborhood(not to be confused with the neighborhood with the same name in Istanbul), where his relatives took their last farewell to him. From here, the crowd, which according to various estimates reached around 100,000 people, headed to his burial place, in the Armutlu neighborhood. Residents of the neighborhood expressed their sympathy by making the victory sign (fingers in the shape of the Latin letter V) from the balconies, with some chanting slogans.
In connection with the protests in Taksim Square, which have spread throughout the country, the Council of Artists(Sanat Meclisi), has issued an urgent call for a meeting, to all artists and intellectuals in the country. The meeting, which discussed what artists and intellectuals in the country can do to support the protests, was attended by 250 cultural activists.
The meeting, which was held at the Ferhan Şensoy Theater, located in the central part of Istanbul, near Taksim Square, was attended by musicians, theater actors, actors from TV series, screenwriters, poets, painters, sculptors, photographers, and in general people from all spheres of art.
The police station in Istanbul’s poor Gazi neighborhood continued to be subjected to stone-throwing. In the neighborhoods of Okmeydani, Sarıgazi, and Gülsuyu, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and clashed with the police.
Source: magazine Bağımsızlık, Demokrasi, Sosyalizm için Yürüyüş(March for Independence, Democracy and Socialism), issue 374 of 21 July 2013.
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