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DESCRIPTION:The government of Turkey has launched a massive attack on people seeking to 
 protect the Gezi Park/Taksim Square\n\n6/1 SF Action To Protest Attack By 
 Turkey's Government On Istanbul's  Gezi Park/Taksim Square 
 Protesters\n\nOCCUPY GEZI PARKI PRESS RELEASE\n\nTo all nature loving 
 people and members of the media:\n\nCurrently Istanbul's one of the few 
 remaining green areas, the Hyde Park of Istanbul, Gezi Parki is under 
 construction to become a shopping mall. Residents, politicians, activists, 
 artists and those who want to hold on to this piece of nature, are facing 
 excessive police force. So far, 51 people are arrested, many are injured, 
 one being in a coma. There are rumors of 2 deaths. Occupy Gezi Parki 
 Movement has turned into a protest against the current anti democratic 
 Tayyip Erdogan Goverment. In other cities of Turkey, such as Ankara and 
 Izmir, ordinary people are on the streets, siding against this oppressive 
 regime. We, approximately 400 Turkish Americans living in the Bay Area, 
 will gather in front of San Francisco Civic Center on Saturday June 1st at 
 11 am, to show our support. Please help us bring this brutality to your 
 viewer's attention.\n\nSF Bay Area Turkish Americans\n\n\nProtest Against 
 Police Repression Tomorrow Saturday at 11:00 AM at Civic Center\n\n	• 
 OCCUPY GEZI PARKI SAN FRANCISCO - GEZI PARKI ICIN SEN DE DESTEK VER\nPublic 
 · By TC SN G Moya, Tugrul Bingol and Bugra Bakan\n	•\n			• Saturday, 
 June 1, 2013\n			• 11:00am in PDT\n\n		• 
 \n*********************\nYarina hazirlik icin gonullu olmak isteyenler 
 lutfen bu Facebook grubuna uye 
 olsun:\nhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/175539005943622/\n*********************\nDear 
 All,\n\nWe are showing our support for our trees, our city, our people who 
 are protesting in Istanbul's Taksim Square.\n\nPlease meet with us at San 
 Francisco Civic Center tomorrow (6/1) at 11:00am.\n\nKALIFORNIYA KORFEZ 
 BOLGESI TURKIYE CUMHURIYETI VATANDASLARINA ACIL EYLEM CAGRISI\n\nGezi Parki 
 icin, Gezi Park'inda agaclari savunan insanlara yapilan canavarliklari 
 kinamak icin desteginizi bekliyoruz. \n\n6/1 Cumartesi hepinizi San 
 Francisco Civic Center'da saat 11:00'de eylemimize bekliyoruz, afisinizi, 
 bayraginizi resimlerinizi getiriniz.\n\nTo all nature loving people and 
 members of the media:\n\nCurrently Istanbul's one of the few remaining 
 green areas, the Hyde Park of Istanbul, Gezi Park, is under construction to 
 become a shopping mall. \n\nResidents, politicians, activists, artists and 
 those who want to hold on to this piece of nature, are facing extreme 
 levels of police brutality.\n\nSo far, 51 people are arrested, there are 
 many injured protesters in hospital, one being in a coma.\n\nWe, the 
 Turkish Americans living in the Bay Area, are gathered to show our support 
 to the protesters in Istanbul, and let them know that they are not alone. 
 Their efforts are noble and even though we can't physically be there, our 
 hearts and minds are with them.\n\nWe hope that those in power would yield 
 to public demand and would leave the trees of Gezi Parki alone, so the city 
 residents can continue to enjoy the park.\n\nSF Bay Area Turkish 
 Americans\n\nhttp://www.vgtv.no/#!/video/65023/direkte-opptøyer-i-istanbul\n\n\nPolice 
 Attack Protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim 
 Square\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/police-attack-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square.html?hpw\nBy 
 TIM ARANGO and CEYLAN YEGINSUMAY 31, 2013\n\n1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 
 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12\nTurkish riot police officers used tear gas in an 
 attempt to break up a four-day sit-in.\nOzan Kose/Agence France-Presse — 
 Getty Images\n\nISTANBUL — Police officers attacked a group of peaceful 
 demonstrators on Friday in Istanbul’s Taksim Square with water cannons 
 and tear gas, sending scores of people, protesters and tourists alike, 
 scurrying into shops and luxury hotels and turning the center of this city 
 into a battle zone at the height of tourist season.\nThe police action was 
 the latest violent crackdown by the government against a growing protest 
 movement challenging plans to replace a park in Taksim Square, Istanbul’s 
 equivalent of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, with a replica Ottoman-era army 
 barracks that would house a shopping mall.\nBut while the removal of the 
 park, which is filled with sycamore trees and is the last significant green 
 space in the center of Istanbul, set off the protests at the beginning of 
 the week, the gatherings have broadened into a wider expression of anger 
 against the heavy-handed tactics and urban development plans of the 
 government and its leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His party, 
 now in power a decade, is increasingly viewed by many Turks as becoming 
 authoritarian.\nMr. Erdogan still has great support among Turkey’s 
 religious masses, but secular critics cite his government’s sweeping 
 prosecution and intimidation of journalists as evidence of its intolerance 
 of dissent.\nMuch of the anger also centers on the struggle over 
 Istanbul’s public spaces. Mr. Erdogan’s government has proceeded with 
 disputed urban development plans with little public input, while his police 
 forces have increasingly used tear gas against peaceful protesters, 
 resulting in scores of injuries, including the hospitalization on Friday of 
 a Kurdish lawmaker, who had become a vocal participant in the protests, 
 after he was hit by a tear gas canister.\nThe protest movement comes amid 
 continued public anger at Turkey’s policy of supporting the rebels in 
 Syria, which many Turks feel has led to a violent spillover inside Turkey, 
 including recent car bombings in the southern city of Reyhanli, which 
 killed dozens of people. The rising public disenchantment represents a 
 significant political challenge to Mr. Erdogan, who is planning to run for 
 the presidency next year and has been trying to alter the Constitution to 
 create a more powerful presidential system.\nIn the early afternoon Friday, 
 as protesters gathered and began shouting antigovernment chants, police 
 officers in riot gear began surrounding the group, positioning vehicles 
 that resembled tanks at the edge of the square around the protesters, who 
 were mostly sitting.\n\nProtesters waded through tear gas on Friday at 
 Taksim Square in Istanbul.\nTolga Bozoglu/European Pressphoto 
 Agency\n“Taksim is ours, we are not giving it to the A.K.P.!” they 
 chanted, referring to Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and 
 Development Party, known as A.K.P.\nAs they chanted, police officers 
 casually put on their gas masks and the operators of the tanklike vehicles 
 aimed their big guns, which fire a mixture of water and tear gas, at the 
 group. Then chaos erupted. Protesters and onlookers, some of them tourists, 
 ran down side streets where shopkeepers offered sliced lemons to soothe the 
 burning sensation of the gas, and pharmacists doled out ointments for skin 
 burns.\n“The pigs, the pigs,” said Esra Yurtnac, who was crying as she 
 sought refuge in a bakery after being gassed. “All they know is how to 
 use gas.”\nShe added, “They think they can silence us with force, but 
 they won’t.”\nHours after the clashes with protesters, an Istanbul 
 court on Friday ruled in favor of a petition by a local advocacy group and 
 halted the project until parties submitted their legal arguments to court, 
 the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported. The interior minister also 
 pledged on Friday that claims of excessive force would be 
 investigated.\nRECENT COMMENTS\n\n	• \nRemember 5th of November\nWe need 
 support! Turkish citizens are harsly attacked by police. This is awakening! 
 Millions flow to streets to protest against government. ...\n	• \ngreen 
 war\nRTE is like the emperor in Star Wars. He's taken the control of all 
 vital points in state. Even the courts are ruled by his orders, there 
 is...\n	• \nLynn\nErdogan is a bully. Why say you will proceed with 
 destroying the last public green space no matter what? Those are the words 
 and thoughts of...\n123 COMMENTS\nThe chaos followed a dawn raid on an 
 Occupy Wall Street-style encampment in Gezi Park, near Taksim, in which the 
 police also used tear gas to drive away protesters and later barricaded the 
 park. In an earlier raid on the camp, on Thursday, the police set fire to 
 some tents. The brief occupation of the park, which began after bulldozers 
 had started to take down trees, had taken on a festival-like atmosphere, 
 with yoga, barbecues and musical performances, while those gathered 
 chanted, “Taksim is ours! Istanbul is ours!”\n\n\nThe people adorned 
 the camp with banners expressing the rising anger at the reshaping of 
 Istanbul’s urban spaces by the government. One read, “Don’t touch our 
 neighborhood, our squares, our trees, our water, our soil, our homes, our 
 villages, our cities and our parks.”\nAnother referred to Mr. Erdogan and 
 the growing number of shopping malls being built around the city. “Let 
 all shopping malls crumble and let Tayyip get crushed by their rubble,” 
 the banner read.\nIn building new mosques and emphasizing Turkey’s 
 Islamic past over its Byzantine and Roman legacies, Mr. Erdogan has been 
 referred to as a latter-day Ottoman sultan, with little regard for seeking 
 public input on the projects. On Wednesday, the government held a 
 groundbreaking ceremony for a third bridge over the Bosporus that is being 
 named for an Ottoman sultan.\n“It’s all about superiority, and ruling 
 over the people like sultans,” said one of the protesters, Seckin 
 Barbaros, 26, a former journalist who is now unemployed. “When were we 
 asked what we wanted? We have three times the amount of mosques as we do 
 schools. Yet they are building new mosques. There are eight shopping malls 
 in the vicinity of Taksim, yet they want to build another.”\nIn a speech 
 earlier in the week, Mr. Erdogan dismissed the protesters and said the 
 destruction of park would go ahead, “no matter what they do.”\nThe 
 anger in the streets is also a rebuke to the economic policies of the 
 government, which have relied heavily on construction and new housing in 
 Istanbul to power economic growth. Turkey has had a resilient economy that 
 emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis, eclipsing 
 the performance of Europe and many other nations. But some analysts worry 
 the government’s focus on construction projects could lead to a bubble 
 much like the one in the United States that led to the economic collapse of 
 2008.\nMs. Barbaros said, “What about the day when all these shopping 
 malls will be empty like in Greece and then they will wish they never 
 constructed them.”\nShe added: “Where are the opera houses? The 
 theaters? The culture and youth centers? What about those? They only choose 
 what will bring them the most profit without considering what we 
 need.”\nAnother demonstrator, Seyfettin Sabaz, who is training to be a 
 dentist, said: “Many of the Turkish public think that we are here as 
 environmentalists to save our sycamore trees. But that’s not it. We are 
 here to stand up against those that are trying to make a profit from our 
 land.”\n123 \nCOMMENTS\nAround Taksim Square, the site of several other 
 tear gas attacks on protesters this year, including one on May Day 
 demonstrators, the chaos is taking on a sense of the familiar to 
 shopkeepers who are becoming accustomed to offering shelter and aid to tear 
 gas victims.\nSebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Antakya, 
 Turkey.\n\nIstanbul Peaceful Sit-in Brutally Repressed-Pepper Gassing The 
 Idea Of The Olympics\nDear member of press reporting from Turkey,\n\nbelow 
 and as a link please find the declaration of a vast urban coalition of 
 Istanbuliots defending their only parc in the city center. The peaceful 
 sit-in has been brutally attacked by the 
 police...\n\nhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1j0oh1qHxf-KAtnrklBuV78xSbZ9yGq1ErBrl1NDFAB4/preview?sle=true\n\n\n\nInternational 
 Human Rights Organizations and Dear Friends, Comrades, Press Members  from 
 all over the world;  \nThis is an urgent call from human rights defenders, 
 activists, NGOs, professional chambers, grassroots, neighborhood 
 associations and Istanbulites.\nSince the 27th of May, Istanbulites from 
 all social and political backgrounds and ages and from all over the city 
 had been continuing a peaceful resistance in Gezi Park, the city's largest 
 public park, soon to be demolished due to a so-called renewal project. This 
 Project foresees the erection of a big mall (designed as the replica of the 
 once Ottoman Artillery Barracks) in the place of those 
 trees.\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgBRGl341ZA\n\nhttp://www.bianet.org/english/english/147016-demonstrators-plant-trees-against-destruction-in-taksim-gezi-park\nThe 
 police intervened in the park 3 times, each more violent than the 
 other:\nThe first intervention was in the morning of May 28th, a crowd of 
 about 50 protestors were tear-gassed directly in their 
 faces.\nhttp://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201305302148-0022796\n\nIn 
 solidarity with the protestors, hundreds arrived in the evening and the 
 occupation movement grew bigger. Right afterwards, the second intervention 
 came early in the morning of May 30th at 5 am. The riot police set fire to 
 the tents and tear gas and pepper sprays were used incessantly, causing 
 serious 
 injuries.\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suEVcTIpzxA&list=UUNwGZGYteEB64ywTGCn0w2g&index=2\n\nhttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/protester-to-undergo-surgery-after-morning-police-intervention-at-taksim-park--.aspx?pageID=238&nID=47878&NewsCatID=341\nAgainst 
 this inhumanity and extreme violence, the reaction was the occupation of 
 the park, this time by thousands.\nAnd this morning proved to be the 
 culmination of violence and barbarism that no words can describe, with an 
 unproportional use of force. The exit of the park was blocked by the 
 police, thus locking the group in the park. The protester were then taken 
 under crossfire of tear gas and pepper bombs, nearly getting choked to 
 death. The only way out was by breaking the walls and many were wounded 
 during this 
 escape.\n\nhttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/protester-to-undergo-surgery-after-morning-police-intervention-at-taksim-park--.aspx?pageID=238&nID=47878&NewsCatID=341.\nAt 
 the moment, brutal intervention against the protestors continues. The group 
 has been pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed once more as they were leaving the 
 area after reading their  press call! At the moment, some are in Divan 
 Hotel at Elmadag, having taken refuge there from the effect of the gas 
 attacks.\nLiterally, almost all of Taksim Area, where Gezi Park is, is 
 tear-gassed and\npepper gas-sprayed; especially the side streets around 
 Taksim Square are under clouds of gas.\nDear friends, we believe we need 
 nothing else to add; the scenes talk for themselves.\nThe resistance for 
 democracy and human rights will not be terminated; we are determined to 
 continue our struggle against a government determined to crush each and 
 every opposition, a government that cannot tolerate even a peaceful 
 opposition for saving trees. The present Turkish government has violated 
 all international human rights conventions and mechanisms it is a party 
 to.\nYour valuable support and solidarity will indeed fortify our 
 determination and resistance. Please share this news, name it and shame and 
 blame the responsibles so that this insanity and brutality practiced 
 against human rights defenders can be terminated through international 
 pressure.\nCALL TO THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITEE\nThis is also a call 
 to the IOC to take Turkey out of its list of 2020.\nIf Olympics means 
 friendship, if Olympic Games mean peace and companionship, these videos are 
 enough proof of how the government violates the ideals of Olympics. Having 
 Istanbul on the list will be tantamount to pepper-gassing these ideals.\nIn 
 the name of solidarity and friendship\nUrban Movements Istanbul / Habitat 
 International Coalition\n\nAslı 
 Odman\n\nhttp://independent.academia.edu/AsliOdman\nIstanbul\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/31/18737735.php
SUMMARY:SF Action To Protest Attack By Turkey's Government On Istanbul's Gezi Park/Taksim Squ
LOCATION:San Francisco Civic Center, SF
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/31/18737735.php
DTSTART:20130601T180000Z
DTEND:20130601T200000Z
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