Tag Archives: Ankara

‘Autocratic Rule’ of Erdogan Cracks as Secular Left Wins Big in Turkey Elections

“You opened the door to the rise of democracy, equality, and freedom,” Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu said following his re-election. “You ignited hope at the ballot box.”

By Brett Wilkins Published 4-1-2024 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: Al Jazeera

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party suffered its worst-ever defeat Sunday when the country’s main opposition party scored major wins in municipal elections, including in all five of the nation’s largest cities.

With nearly all ballots counted, candidates for the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) emerged victorious in Istanbul, the capital Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Adana, and other cities and towns. Turkish media reported CHP victories in 36 of the country’s 81 provinces. The right-wing Justice and Development Party (AKP) performed best in the largely rural Anatolian interior.

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Istanbul bombing: Turkish PM tries to put blame on Kurds

A suicide bomber blew himself up in central Istanbul. With no-one claiming the attack, the Turkish government eagerly used it for their own propaganda.

By Joris Leverink. Published 1-29-2016 by ROAR Magazine.

Photo: Twitter

Photo: Twitter

On Tuesday, January 12 a big explosion took place in the heart of Istanbul’s tourist district of Sultanahmet. The explosion was caused by a suicide bomber who blew himself up next to a group of mainly German tourists, instantly killing ten and injuring 15 others. Soon, the bomber was identified as a Saudi born Syrian man who had recently entered Turkey as a refugee.

According to the Turkish authorities the man was linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS, or ISIS), making this the terrorist group’s fourth deadly suicide bombing in Turkey in one year. Previous attacks that have been ascribed to – but haven’t been claimed by – IS occurred in Diyarbakir in June, Suruç in July and Ankara in October, with a death toll totaling around 140. Continue reading

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Attacks in Ankara: Same reality, different worlds

Whenever I hear academics preaching the discourse of “there is no ‘West’ and no ‘East'”, I know that there is the ultimate confidence and ‘superiority’ of a western passport behind it.

By Firat M. Haciahmetoglu. Published 10-16-2015 at openDemocracy

Kocatepe mosque, Ankara. Wikimedia/Bjorn Christian Torrensen. Creative Commons.

Kocatepe mosque, Ankara. Wikimedia/Bjorn Christian Torrensen. Creative Commons.

On the ninth of October, I had a long discussion with a renowned European professor about Europe and non-Europeans, about the West and the East in a nice, neat café, somewhere in the Western Europe.

On the tenth of October, two blasts took place at a peace rally in my hometown, Ankara. Almost one hundred people were killed.

On the ninth of October, my European professor told me that there is nothing that I can pinpoint as Europe and non-Europe. There is, that is to say, nothing that one can address as the West and the East. Their histories were, so said she, too intimately intertwined that one would not be able to discern one or the other.

On the tenth of October, I was calling my family and friends if they were okay, if they were alive. Continue reading

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Impressions at Gezi Park

Taksim Square - Gezi Park Protests, İstanbul, 1 June 2013. Photo By Alan Hilditch from Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Taksim Square – Gezi Park Protests, İstanbul, 1 June 2013. Photo By Alan Hilditch from Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

On International Women’s Day, police used violence to prevent a group of approximately 50 women (an association against the murder of women), denouncing domestic violence against women from entering Gezi Park at Taksim Square in Istanbul.

A police officer in plainclothes approached the spokeswoman of the group while she was peacefully reading a statement and shouted: “You are not allowed to stage a demonstration here. Get out!” a report from the daily Hürriyet said. “The officer then violently pushed several women down the stairs, as the group refused to disperse and tried to resist the police attack with their banners.”

“In the aftermath of their violent removal from Gezi Park, hundreds of women gathered at Galatasaray Square before attempting to march on Taksim Square despite a steady downpour and cold temperatures. The demonstrators, who frequently chanted “Tayyip, escape, woman are coming” in Turkish and “Women, Life, Freedom” in Kurdish, advanced as far Zambak Street before they were met by a cordon of riot police. Police used their shields to shove a number of those that had reached the security force’s lines before organizational leaders called for a retreat toward Galatasaray,” the Hurrieyet continued.

Since the Gezi Park uprising began on May 31 of 2013, police often block off access to Gezi Park and Taksim Square’s central monument at the whim of the province’s governor, Hüseyin Avni Mutlu. The protestors are met with violent, military-style brutality, complete with chemical weapons like teargas, under Mutlu’s instructions.

The Gezi Park Occupation originated when civilians objected to the decision of the government to raze and develop the last public green space in Istanbul. The protest surged when the fans of three football teams took their energy and support from the huge, filled stadium to the park and united forces with the people there. Met with extremely brutal push-back from riot police, demonstrators went as far as to write their names and blood types in indelible marker on their arms, fearing the worst and wanting medics to know something should the unthinkable happen.

This 18 minute video report will take you inside the uprising, giving voice to the thousands of people who continue their united struggle for democracy in Turkey.


A video from June 2013 describing the situation in Istanbul as it was at that time.

The uprisings quickly spread to over 60 cities in Turkey, and the struggles continue today. Occupy World Writes stands in solidarity with the demonstrators of Gezi Park, the people of Turkey and northern Kurdistan, and all those who support the right of people to assemble and make redress of grievances against their governments who have failed them.

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