What started as a protest against the government's move to close the only green square in Istanbul's Taksim Square, Gezi Park, swelled into a massive three-day protest consisting of hundreds of arrests and injuries.
Citizens of Turkey crowded Taksim Sunday, hurling rocks at riot police and being blasted by tear gas, CNN reports. The protests have been raging on for more than 36 hours, with protesters building makeshift barricades in the square to close out the police.
Demonstrators said that the move to protect the Square has fallen to the wayside as the people of Turkey have grown fed up with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian hold over the country. They denounced his placement of religion in politics to bolster his Islamic-based AK Party, the censorship of its media and is alleged disregard for Turkey';s secular constitution.
"All this government worries about is rewarding its own. Those with a different voice are marginalized. That's what I'm protesting," Tugba Bitiktas, a 25-year-old unemployed university graduate, told Reuters.
There have been protests in 67 of Turkey's 81 provinces in the last four days, making these events some of the biggest since Erdogan took power 10 years ago.
The prime minister, now in his 10th and final year in office, is known to have breezed through the previous three elections, bringing out political stability and economic prosperity. Still, his attempts to leave a legacy in Turkey have been marked with heavy criticism.
"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. He's just a prime minister."
More than 700 people have been detained since Tuesday, many of whom are said to have been released. There are 58 demonstrators still in local hospitals due to injuries, and approximately 115 security officers have been injured.
Erdogan responded to the protesters' push for him to resign in a speech earlier Sunday.
"I ask in the name of God, Tayyip Erdogan is a dictator? If you are the kind of person who can call someone who serves their people a dictator, then I have no words for you," he said.
International human rights groups, such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, have called out the government's handling of the protest, saying that excessive force is being used on otherwise peaceful demonstration.
Protesters said this weekend that ultimately they felt betrayed by Erdogan, who promised to help the poor and oppressed, which seemed to be the direction he was heading when he began fostering the growth of the struggling economy. Turks say that he used religion to exploit the emotions of the people.
"I say my prayers, and I fast, and I considered voting for Erdogan in the past because I believed he would help the oppressed, since he had been," Metin, a 30-year-old doctor who would not give his last name for fearing of being reprimanded at work, said. "But now that he has the power, Erdogan has become the oppressor. He exploits our religious feelings for profit. He has become arrogant, and that is a sin."
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
