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
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.
