Protests unite Turks across the social spectrum

Photo: AP Burgak Ongur, 44, ibu kepada dua anak-anak remaja, menimbulkan gambar-gambar di taman Gezi Taksim di Istanbul. Pusat persegi dan taman berdaun di bandar terbesar di Turki telah diduduki oleh penunjuk perasaan dari semua lapisan masyarakat dan semua peringkat umur sejak 6 hari lalu _ menunjukkan tarikh alasan kuat terhadap Perdana Menteri di negara ini yang popular, yang banyak menuduh memaparkan semakin cara sombong dan cuba untuk campur tangan dalam kehidupan peribadi rakyatnya.

Photo: AP Burgak Ongur, 44, a mother of two teenage children, poses for a photograph at the Gezi park of Taksim in Istanbul. The central square and its leafy park in Turkey’s largest city has been occupied by protesters from all walks of life and all ages for the past six days _ the strongest show of defiance to date against the country’s popular prime minister, who many accuse of displaying increasingly arrogant ways and attempting to intervene in his citizens’ private lives.

Protes Turki menyatukan seluruh spektrum sosial

by MadaMadyan | Suara Rakyat@1WORLDCommunity

TINJAUAN 1WC’sChannel 2013: ISTANBUL (AP) - Pekerja pejabat  urus-niaga memuji-muji slogan anti-kerajaan di samping wanita alim memakai tudung Islam. Sekolah dan anarkis berjanggut gosok bahu dengan peminat bola sepak, wanita yang berada dalam cermin mata hitam berjenama dan pasangan warga tua menderma makanan.

Kumpulan-kumpulan ini berbeza bersatu dengan penggera pada apa yang mereka anggap tidak wajar campur tangan dan tingkah laku yang semakin autokratik oleh Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Perdana Menteri Turki yang paling popular dalam beberapa dekad. Malah beberapa penyokongnya menyertai protes yang melanda negara itu.

Pada hari Rabu, beribu-ribu membanjiri pusat Taksim Square, Istanbul untuk hari berterusan yang  ke-6. Pertempuran tercetus di ibu negara, Ankara, di mana polis rusuhan menggunakan gas pemedih mata dan air meriam untuk menundukkan penunjuk perasaan. Hampir 1,000 orang telah cedera dan lebih daripada 3,300 orang ditahan sejak hari Jumaat, mengikut Ankara berasaskan Persatuan Hak Asasi Manusia.

Apa yang bermula sebagai satu bantahan alam sekitar terhadap rancangan untuk merobek sehingga pokok-pokok dalam satu ruang lepas pusat Istanbul hijau untuk memberi laluan kepada sebuah pusat membeli-belah pergolakan Turki paling meluas telah menyaksikan dalam beberapa dekad.

"Buat pertama kalinya, ia adalah semua orang," kata Beste Yurekli, pelajar sekolah tinggi 18 tahun membantu untuk membersihkan sampah di Gezi Park Taksim Square, di mana beratus-ratus penunjuk perasaan berkhemah untuk cuba menghalang jentolak dari bergerak dalam. "Semua Turki, kita bersatu. Kami bersatu untuk kali pertama."

Sebab-sebab, beliau berkata, adalah jelas. "Ia bukan hanya kerana pokok-pokok. Ini adalah kerana kerajaan kami sudah cukup dengannya. Dia telah bertindak seperti diktator," katanya mengenai Erdogan. Sejak datang ke kuasa pada tahun 2002, keyakinan Perdana Menteri telah berkembang seiring dengan sokongan beliau, membenarkan beliau untuk memenangi pilihan raya 2011 - kemenangan ketiga berturut-turut - dengan hampir 50 peratus undi. Walaupun beliau telah menegaskan komitmen kepada tradisi sekular Turki yang tidak berbelah bahagi, perdana menteri pemimpin beragama Islam telah bergerak untuk membuat agama semakin menonjol.

Erdogan menarik sokongan beliau terutamanya dari yang besar, terutamanya di luar bandar, asas agama Turki konservatif. Di negara di mana legasi staunchly sekular bapa pengasas negara moden, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, telah tekun sama ditegakkan, meningkat kepada kuasa telah diumumkan sebagai menamatkan penindasan umat Islam agama, yang telah dilarang daripada memaparkan terang-terangan iman mereka , seperti wanita yang memakai tudung di universiti.

Tetapi campur tangan semakin kerap beliau ke dalam kehidupan peribadi rakyat telah mengganggu ramai. Mengisytiharkan bahawa beliau mahu menimbulkan "generasi" belia alim, beliau telah bercakap menentang pasangan mencium pada pengangkutan awam, tegas menasihatkan wanita mempunyai sekurang-kurangnya 3 orang anak dan melatah pula untuk menyekat penjualan arak dan mengharamkan pengiklanan.

Dengan setiap pengisytiharan, moden, penduduk terutamanya bandar berkembang lebih cemas. Malah orang agama mula melecetkan pada apa yang mereka dianggap tidak wajar campur tangan dalam hal ehwal peribadi mereka. "Kami berada di Taksim Square untuk menentang terhadap tadbir urus yang autoritarian, keganasan polis dan melindungi taman kami," kata Fatma Dogan umat Islam Anti-kapitalis, satu inisiatif awam ditubuhkan pada tahun 2001.

Ihsan Eliacik, satu lagi penyokong kumpulan itu, berkata sekurang-kurangnya separuh daripada rakyat dalam inisiatif telah mengundi parti pemerintah pada masa lalu. "Ada orang yang menyokong parti pemerintah belum menyertai kami kerana mereka berfikir bahawa kerajaan perlu menukar beberapa dasar," kata beliau.

Dengan asas sokongan yang kuat, bantahan tidak mungkin menimbulkan ancaman serius kepada survival kerajaan Erdogan. Tetapi mereka boleh menjadi panggilan bangun bahawa Perdana Menteri tidak boleh mengabaikan 50% peratus daripada pengundi yang tidak mengundi untuk beliau.

"Saya seorang pembela kebebasan untuk dosa," kolumnis Mustafa Akyol menulis dalam Daily News Hurriyet minggu terakhir sebelum protes bermula. "Apa yang sesetengah orang anggap sebagai dosa, dalam erti kata lain, tidak boleh diharamkan oleh undang-undang, kecuali dosa-dosa juga layak menjadi jenayah objektif, dengan bahaya yang jelas kepada orang lain."

Bercakap kepada AP Television News pada Rabu, Akyol berkata walaupun Erdogan menjadi perdana menteri yang paling popular Turki dalam setengah abad, "pemahaman tentang demokrasi untuk menjadi lebih jitu dan lebih liberal. Dan dia perlu memahami bahawa pemimpin-pemimpin yang dipilih secara demokrasi juga mempunyai had bahawa mereka tidak perlu menyeberang, dan mereka juga harus cuba untuk memenangi orang lain . . . bukannya menakutkan mereka dan menjadikan mereka lebih saraf. "

Pelan Erdogan untuk menyamaratakan Gezi Park - dan berikutnya tindak balas polis ganas untuk apa yang bermula sebagai bantahan aman - adalah jerami terakhir bagi banyak. Desakan Perdana Menteri bahawa penunjuk perasaan tidak lebih daripada pengacau, berkhidmat hanya untuk menyemarakkan api.

"Saya melihat imej yang besar di Internet," kata ahli perniagaan Bulent Peker, yang menggambarkan dirinya sebagai penyokong setia Keadilan dan Pembangunan pemerintah Parti Erdogan dan telah mengundi dalam semua 3 pilihan raya.

Penunjuk perasaan, beliau berkata, "berada di sana berkelah, melindungi pokok-pokok, tetapi khemah-khemah mereka telah dibakar dan mereka terpaksa keluar dengan air bertekanan deras, yang boleh membawa maut . . . hati nurani saya yang tercedera." Keesokan harinya, beliau adalah antara berpuluh-puluh ribu yang tertumpu di Taksim Square mengecam tindakan keras polis dan memanggil Erdogan untuk meletak jawatan.

"Mereka adalah orang-orang dengan ideologi yang berbeza untuk saya tetapi saya tidak dapat menerima hakikat bahawa mereka tidak didengar, bahawa mereka yang dibuang ke dalam latar belakang," kata Peker melalui telefon dari bandar Bursa di barat laut Turki.

"Perasaan saya adalah bahawa kerajaan perlu mendengar apa yang orang-orang ini berfikir. Ia tidak mengabaikan mereka, atau ia akan berakhir dengan beratus-ratus ribu orang geram," kata Peker, yang menulis surat terbuka mengkritik Perdana Menteri bahawa telah diterbitkan oleh akhbar-akhbar Turki semalam.

Namun, katanya, beliau akan mengundi bagi pihak Erdogan jika pilihan raya diadakan esok. "Sudah tentu, ideologi saya tidak akan berubah dalam satu hari," katanya. "Saya menyokong banyak dasar-dasar yang lain. Mengenai ekonomi, dasar luar, apa yang telah dilakukan kira-kira (meningkatkan) kesihatan. Tiada pihak lain yang sesuai dengan pandangan saya."

"Tetapi parti yang saya mahu adalah salah satu yang membawa orang bersama-sama."

Associated Press penulis Suzan Fraser dan Ezgi Akin di Ankara dan Nebi Qena di Istanbul menyumbang kepada laporan ini.

Photo: AP A penunjuk perasaan Turki melaungkan slogan seperti "Don't yield" sebagai beribu-ribu ahli kesatuan sekerja yang berada di mogok 2 hari berarak ke Kizilay Square, di Ankara, Turki, rabu 5 Jun, 2013. Sekumpulan aktivis telah bertemu dengan Timbalan Perdana Menteri Turki untuk mengemukakan tuntutan yang boleh berakhir hari demonstrasi anti-kerajaan jika dipenuhi. Kumpulan itu menggesa kerajaan untuk menamatkan rancangan untuk membangunkan sebuah taman di Istanbul, menghentikan pembunuhan penunjuk perasaan lusuh, dan mengangkat sekatan ke atas kebebasan bersuara dan berhimpun.

Photo: AP A Turkish protester shouts slogans such as "Don't yield" as thousands of trade union members who are on a two-day strike march to Kizilay Square, in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, June 5, 2013. A group of activists have met with Turkey's deputy prime minister to present demands that could end days of anti-government demonstrations if met. The group urged the government to end plans to develop a park in Istanbul, stop tear gassing protesters, and lift restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly.

Photo: AP penunjuk perasaan Turki mengibar bendera kebangsaan dengan poster pengasas Ataturk Kemal Turki sebagai beribu-ribu ahli kesatuan sekerja yang berada di mogok 2 hari berarak ke Kizilay Square, pusat bandar utama, di Ankara, Turki, Rabu 5 Jun , 2013. Kehidupan harian adalah sebahagiannya kembali normal selepas hari pertempuran sengit antara beribu-ribu penunjuk perasaan marah dan polis rusuhan sebagai pekerja perkhidmatan awam perdagangan-kesatuan persekutuan dipanggil mogok 2 hari untuk menyokong protes.

Photo: AP A Turkish protester waves a national flag with a poster of Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk as thousands of trade union members who are on a two-day strike march to Kizilay Square, city's main center, in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Daily life is partly back to normal after days of intense clashes between thousands of angry protesters and riot police as a public service workers trade-union confederation called a two-day strike in support of the protests.

Photo: AP polis rusuhan menggunakan meriam air untuk menyuraikan penunjuk perasaan di ibu negara Turki, Ankara, lewat Rabu, 5 Jun, 2013. Di Ankara dan Istanbul, beribu-ribu ahli kesatuan meminta Turki Perdana Menteri Recep Tayyip Erdogan untuk meletak jawatan.

Photo: AP Riot police use water cannon to disperse protesters in Turkish capital, Ankara, late Wednesday, June 5, 2013. In Ankara and Istanbul, thousands of union members asked Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resign.

Photo: AP grafiti merujuk kepada Perdana Menteri Turki Recep Tayyip Erdogan sebagai syaitan dilihat pada tingkap tempat tinggal bas sebagai penunjuk perasaan berjalan di atas sebuah kereta yang rosak semasa protes di Taksim persegi, Istanbul, Turki, Rabu JUN 5, 2013 . Bandar-bandar Turki telah kabur dalam gas pemedih mata, dan beratus-ratus orang telah cedera dalam 5 hari demonstrasi.

Photo: AP A graffiti referring to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the devil is seen on the window of a bus shelter as a protester walks on a damaged car during a protest in Taksim square, Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Turkey's cities have been clouded in tear gas, and hundreds of people have been injured in five days of demonstrations.

Photo: AP penunjuk perasaan memegang kepalanya duduk di atas tangga taman Gezi berhampiran Taksim persegi Istanbul, rabu 5 Jun, 2013. Berpuluh-puluh ribu orang Turki telah menyertai protes anti-kerajaan 5 hari lepas bagi menyatakan rasa tidak puas hati dengan pemerintahan Perdana Menteri Recep Tayyip Erdogan 10 tahun.

Photo: AP A protester holding his head sits on the stairs of Gezi park near Taksim square of Istanbul, Wednesday, June 5 2013. Tens of thousands of Turks have joined anti-government protests the last five days expressing discontent with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 10-year rule.

Photo: AP polis rusuhan menggunakan meriam air untuk menyuraikan penunjuk perasaan di ibu negara Turki, Ankara, lewat Rabu, 5 Jun, 2013. Di Ankara dan Istanbul, beribu-ribu ahli kesatuan meminta Turki Perdana Menteri Recep Tayyip Erdogan untuk meletak jawatan.

Photo: AP Riot police use water cannon to disperse protesters in Turkish capital, Ankara, late Wednesday, June 5, 2013. In Ankara and Istanbul, thousands of union members asked Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resign.

Photo: AP penunjuk perasaan melaungkan slogan semasa protes di persegi Taksim, Istanbul, Turki, Rabu 5 Jun, 2013. Bandar-bandar Turki telah kabur dalam gas pemedih mata, dan beratus-ratus orang telah cedera dalam 5 hari demonstrasi.

Photo: AP Protesters shout slogans during a protest in Taksim square, Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Turkey's cities have been clouded in tear gas, and hundreds of people have been injured in five days of demonstrations.

Photo: AP Ismail Kizilcay, seorang penunjuk perasaan Turki, cedera dalam satu serangan oleh polis rusuhan, memegang poster Ethem Sarsuluk, seorang pekerja cedera semasa protes di Ankara pada hari Sabtu, dibantu oleh rakan di ibu kota Turki, Ankara, lewat Rabu Jun 5, 2013. Di Ankara dan Istanbul, beribu-ribu ahli kesatuan meminta Turki Perdana Menteri Recep Tayyip Erdogan untuk meletak jawatan.

Photo: AP Ismail Kizilcay, a Turkish protester, injured in an attack by riot police, holds a poster of Ethem Sarsuluk, a worker injured during a protest in Ankara on Saturday, helped by a friend in Turkish capital, Ankara, late Wednesday, June 5, 2013. In Ankara and Istanbul, thousands of union members asked Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resign.

Photo: AP penunjuk perasaan duduk di hadapan benteng yang semasa protes berhampiran persegi Taksim di Istanbul, awal Rabu Jun 5, 2013. Timbalan Perdana Menteri Turki ditawarkan meminta maaf Selasa untuk tindakan keras kerajaan terhadap bantahan alam sekitar, usaha dikira untuk memudahkan hari perhimpunan anti-kerajaan di bandar-bandar utama di negara ini.

Photo: AP A protester sits in front of a barricade during a protest near Taksim square in Istanbul, early Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Turkey's deputy prime minister offered an apology Tuesday for the government's violent crackdown on an environmental protest, a calculated bid to ease days of anti-government rallies in the country's major cities.

Protests unite Turks across the social spectrum

REVIEW 1WC'sChannel 2013: ISTANBUL (AP) - Office workers in business suits chant anti-government slogans alongside pious women wearing Muslim headscarves. Schoolchildren and bearded anarchists rub shoulders with football fans, well-heeled women in designer sunglasses and elderly couples donating food.

These disparate groups are united by alarm at what they consider unwarranted meddling and increasingly autocratic behavior by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's most popular prime minister in decades. Even some of his supporters are joining the protests sweeping the country.

On Wednesday, thousands thronged Istanbul's central Taksim Square for a sixth straight day. Violent clashes broke out in the capital, Ankara, where riot police used tear gas and water cannon to subdue protesters. Nearly 1,000 people have been injured and more than 3,300 people detained since Friday, according to the Ankara-based Human Rights Association.

What started as an environmental outcry against plans to rip up trees in one of central Istanbul's last green spaces to make way for a shopping mall has burgeoned into the most widespread unrest Turkey has seen in decades.

"For the first time, it's everyone," said Beste Yurekli, an 18-year-old high school student helping to clean up garbage in Taksim Square's Gezi Park, where hundreds of demonstrators were camped out to try to prevent the bulldozers from moving in. "All of Turkey, we are united. We are one for the first time."

The reasons, she said, are clear. "It's not just because of the trees. It's because we've had enough of the government. He's been acting like a dictator," she said of Erdogan. Since coming to power in 2002, the prime minister's confidence has grown in tandem with his support, allowing him to win the 2011 election - his third consecutive victory — with nearly 50 percent of the vote. Although he has insisted his commitment to Turkey's secular traditions are unwavering, the devoutly Muslim prime minister has moved to make religion increasingly prominent.

Erdogan draws his support mainly from Turkey's large, predominantly rural, religious conservative base. In a country where the staunchly secular legacy of the modern state's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has been zealously upheld, his rise to power was heralded as an end to the oppression of religious Muslims, who had been banned from overt displays of their faith, such as women wearing headscarves in universities.

But his increasingly frequent interventions into people's private lives have disturbed many. Declaring that he wanted to raise a "generation" of pious youths, he has spoken out against couples kissing on public transport, sternly advised women to have at least three children and moved to curtail the sale of alcohol and ban its advertising.

With each proclamation, the modern, mainly urban population grew more alarmed. Even religious people began to chafe at what they considered unwarranted meddling in their private affairs. "We were in Taksim Square to resist against the authoritarian governance, police violence and to protect our park," said Fatma Dogan of the Anti-Capitalist Muslims, a civil initiative founded in 2001.

Ihsan Eliacik , another supporter of the group, said at least half of the people in the initiative have voted for the ruling party in the past. "There are people who support the ruling party yet joined us because they think that the government should change some of its policies," he said.

With his strong support base, the protests are unlikely to pose a serious threat to the survival of Erdogan's government. But they could serve as a wake-up call that the prime minister cannot ignore the 50 percent of the electorate who did not vote for him.

"I am a defender of the freedom to sin," columnist Mustafa Akyol wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News last week before the protests began. "What some people consider as sin, in other words, should not be banned by laws, unless the sins are also worthy of being objective crimes, with clear harm to others."

Speaking to AP Television News on Wednesday, Akyol noted that while Erdogan was Turkey's most popular prime minister in half a century, "his understanding of democracy has to become more participatory and more liberal. And he has to understand that democratically elected leaders also have limits that they should not cross, and they should also try to win the other people ... rather than intimidating them and making them more nervous."

Erdogan's plan to raze Gezi Park - and the ensuing violent police reaction to what started out as a peaceful protest - was the final straw for many. The prime minister's insistence that the protesters were no more than troublemakers, served only to fan the flames.

"I saw the awful images on the Internet," said businessman Bulent Peker, who describes himself as a devoted supporter of Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party and has voted for it in all three elections.

The protesters, he said, "were there having a picnic, protecting the trees, but their tents were burnt and they were forced out with pressurized water, which can be lethal. . My conscience was hurt." The next day, he was among the tens of thousands who converged on Taksim Square to denounce the police crackdown and call for Erdogan to resign.

"They were people with different ideology to mine but I could not accept the fact that they were not being heard, that they were being thrown into the background," Peker said by phone from the town of Bursa in northwest Turkey.

"My feeling is that the government had to listen to what these people were thinking. It should not ignore them, or it will end up with hundreds of thousands of resentful people," said Peker, who wrote an open letter criticizing the prime minister that was published by Turkish newspapers Wednesday.

Still, he said, he would vote for Erdogan's party if elections were held tomorrow. "Of course, my ideology won't change in one day," he said. "I support many of its other policies. On the economy, its foreign policy, what it has done about (improving) health. There is no other party that fits my views."

"But the party I want is one that brings the people together."

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser and Ezgi Akin in Ankara and Nebi Qena in Istanbul contributed to this report.