Thousands of protesters in Istanbul clashed with police in the most violent rally Turkey has seen in years. Hundreds have been injured and dozens arrested in fierce rioting which the media has dubbed the Turkish Spring as it spreads across the country.
The protests in Turkey have entered their second day Saturday morning, with police trying to disperse crowds in Istanbul and Ankara with teargas and water cannons.
The bridge over the Bosphorous Strait in Istanbul was blocked by thousands of protesters heading west from the eastern part of the city, trying to reach Taksim Square, cordoned off by police.
The Friday morning police crackdown on peaceful Occupy-style protesters rallying against the demolition of a landmark park in Istanbul, have over the day and night grown into massive street battles with police using teargas and water cannons against thousands of demonstrators and rioting spilling over to other Turkish cities, including the capital Ankara, and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
What started out as a protest against cutting down trees in the Istanbul Gezi Park turned into a broader demonstration against Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which the demonstrators accuse of having grown increasingly authoritarian.
“This isn’t about trees anymore; it’s about all of the pressure we’re under from this government. We’re fed up; we don’t like the direction the country is headed in,” Mert Burge, an 18-year-old student, who came to support the protesters after he heard about the use of teargas via twitter, told Reuters.
At least 12 people including a pro-Kurdish MP and a Reuters photographer, suffered trauma injuries in the clashes. Six of the injured are suffering from serious head trauma. A 34-year-old Egyptian tourist is undergoing an operation after suffering a brain hemorrhage, Huseyin Demirduzen, from the Istanbul Medical Chamber board, told Reuters. Meanwhile a member of the opposition Peace and Democratic Party is in intensive care in a serious condition.
Hundreds more suffered respiratory problems due to the effects of tear gas, Demirduzen said. Several people were injured after a wall they were trying to climb in an attempt to get away from clouds of teargas collapsed underneath them.
In Ankara, police also used teargas to disperse protesters trying to reach the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in support of the anti-government rioters in Istanbul.
Full article and link :
http://rt.com/news/turkey-clashes-istanbul-park-067/
My thoughts : The media is making it seem like the protestors were "peacefully voicing their concerns." and then the waffen-ss suddenly came along and brutalized everybody. It's obvious that most of these people don't give a flying f*** about the trees and want to have an excuse for rioting against the government. The police used excessive force, i agree. But the protestors aren't innocent either, they turned this into a large scale riot by taking it to other places.
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