[Archived] Istanbul - please help- media blackout out here

[Stuart]

You need to stay well out of it Ben. You've done your bit to get public interest up. Keep safe now buddy.

[diziet2]

You need to stay well out of it Ben. You've done your bit to get public interest up. Keep safe now buddy.

agreed, from now on yep. Police are liable to move to "shoot to kill"... remember unlike british police officers all these boys carry a pistol. all that is needed is for a young copper from the backwoods to panic and start shooting when he is under pressure from protesters.

interestingly the goverment is now suggesting a n istanbul referendum on the gezi park/taksim square redevelopment. If sign of concessions. however let us see what happens tonight and what tayyip says tomorrow.

As they say one thing and then blatantly do the opposite.

a new upload of yesterday. I am going to remove the other one

[Stuart]

Just think if we hadn't bought Jordan Rhodes, us Rovers fans would probably not have seen these videos. Funny how things work out sometimes...

[diziet2]

Just think if we hadn't bought Jordan Rhodes, us Rovers fans would probably not have seen these videos. Funny how things work out sometimes...

its what swung the deal, after Dean said he wouldn't sell to a divisional rival...

[Ricky]

In true soccer AM fashion, keep your nut daan!!!!!

[diziet2]

The latest is that the government 'might' offer the residents of Istanbul a city referendum on the gezi park issue. But want the protesters to leave.

Up front this seems reasonable. However this government just blatantly lies. I.e. We are not going to touch the people in gexi park, families will be safe and then 2 hours later the tear gas bombed it.

Just yesterday the government was saying that that had had intelligence for a couple of months that foreign powers had been planning this. I can tell you this was an uncoordinated uprising. A bunch of environmentalists wanted to save the park. The shocking police brutality and Tayyips harsh words then brought Istanbul to protest in defense. And now we are where we are.

The other thing is I was taking a look at a stream this morning and I see the 70 odd police buses have moved up from where they were 700 metres away from taksim and are now parked up along the one side of Taksim and Gezi park.

Me being cynical, I think the referendum idea is a ploy to try have calm for anight while they have moved people into place to storm Gezi park again.

Erdogan wants this done by the weekend otherwise there will be the 3rd week of mass marches on Taksim during Saturday and Sunday.

All cat and mouse, is this game.

[Guest Norbert]

Use the ballot box to oust the tyrant, assuming that votes/politicians don't go missing of course.

[diziet2]

I think Article gets to the fundamental heart of the matter. A judge in a court of law has already said that it is illegal to build on Gezi park. The government has continued to ignore the rule of law.

Even the proposed referendum cannot take precedence over the law ' that it is illegal to build on gezi park' whatever its outcome

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/referendum-cannot-go-against-court-decision-top-judge-says-on-gezi-park.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48728&NewsCatID=34

And that is the fundamental point. Is a society governed by the rule of law that all citizens from the PM down abide by or is society ruled on the whim of one person in charge?

[diziet2]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22889060

Here we go,

I predict around 8pm tonight the police will go in super hard and people will be seriously injured and killed.

This is the way of Erdogan.

I was speaking to a reporter who had done some back ground on him and the following I think is important. He was brought up in a strict Muslim household. If his father caught him cursing he was hung from the ceiling by his wrist.

It is clear that he takes the same attitude to the country, expect that he is the father. 'my children are being disrespectful and need to be punished'

I do not look forward to reading about what has happened in the morning. How many in hospital? how many dead?

[philipl]

Erdogan can write himself into the book of baddies tonight and make Turkey a pariah state if he really intends a military style assault.

[blue_n_white99]

Some more footage of recent clashes:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/video/fresh-clashes-turkey-125200620.html;_ylt=ApWMtpd427iMejE0UVnBMpEZfcl_;_ylu=X3oDMTJ2czE3YjIyBG1pdANnZW5lcmljIHBsYXlsaXN0IG1vZHVsZQRwa2cDNzIzZDc0YmUtM2NlYy0zODIyLTg2NTItNjY3ZDJkMDcwODNlBHBvcwM0BHNlYwNNZWRpYVBsYXlsaXN0QmFy;_ylg=X3oDMTBxbmE1NWo4BGxhbmcDZW4tR0IEdGVzdANGTV9Db250cm9s;_ylv=3?pb_list=4a2a827f-d6e1-4671-a66a-9d0d8443e2ea

[diziet2]

a great article on what taksim/gezi has been like over the last couple of weeks

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8934351/turkeys-agony-the-view-from-taksim-square/

[diziet2]

a strange turn of events... After threatening that gezi will be cleansed in the next 24 hours, he is suddenly asking for a late night meeting with the leaders of taksim solidarity.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-to-hold-late-night-meeting-with-group-of-protesters-artists-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48789&NewsCatID=338

now this is a bit odd as there was a stage managed meeting on Wednesday but this was Tayyip with a actor and another person who had nothing to do with the protest. it was very odd. and seemed to happen to just lull the protesters in the Tuesday afternoon, evening.

this seems to be a real meeting, but what is its purpose? Genuine discussion or something else?

[diziet2]

live feed

www.dha.com.tr/canli-yayin-2/

thousands in Taksim square ( 1000's more in Gexi park itself).. police are lined up ready... take a look. I think it will all spark once the results of these talks are issued.. 2 hours maybe

[diziet2]

Istanbul is a wonderful and crazy place.

police are all lined up with the tomas etc, the primeminster has said for mothers to take their childern away. And what do we have tonight?

A famous concert pianist playing a free gig with thousands around him and the police watching on. Mothers have all come out and instead of taking their children away they have formed a human ring around gezi park.

Unbelievable!

while at the same time the government is trying to shut down the one independent tv station that is showing the protests live?

Strange days

[diziet2]

a new live feed for the concert and view of taksim

[Glenn]

N.B. Admins,

I have been advised to not leave an electronic footprint.. i.e. I need to get a bit of anonymity. I can't work out how to change my username. If you can could you change my name? 'diziet' will work nicely. I will go back and delete many of my previous posts.

Can you then remove this single post.

Thanks.

N.B. I can't see an 'email admin' facility? is there one that I am missing?

Sorry, I picked a bad time to spend a few days away from the forums. We already had a diziet so you're not diziet2.

Can I suggest your next move is to grab a copy of tor (the onion router) to hide your tracks a little. I can set you up with a European VPN too if that helps.

Stay strong. Outside Turkey people have learned to not trust the official reports and are instead following the citizen journalism from people on the ground.

From those of us on the outside looking in, can I recommend https://www.facebook.com/chapullinginternational

[diziet2]

thanks.

I think my favorite thing of tonight, is that while this beautiful concert is playing, thousands of mothers are out here tonight. formed the human chain... but its just beautiful and a wonderful subversion of tayyip and the mayor both telling parents to take their children home. Instead the mothers have come out to protect the park!

I never imagined such a thing could happen. Some even have signs parodying Tayyip saying " police mothers come and take your sons home!"

I have never experienced anything like this before.. it is definitely a cultural awakening.

And you know, if the mothers are against you... well what hope do you have? suddenly anything is possible.

Get through to Friday evening and we are at the wekend, everyone is off work and tens of thousands will join. The football teams will lead marches again (the carsi and the fenbache and galatasaray hardcore are up in gezi at the moment)

i can only salute the people of turkey.. good on 'em!

As ghandi said, first they ignore you, then the belittle you, then the fight you, then you win.... It is surprisingly true.... Still in the fighting stage at the moment.

On another note.. I am impressed someone has previously chosen the name 'diziet' before.. most interesting...

[diziet2]

More amazing pictures from tonight.. the

mothers forming the defensive line.

[Glenn]

I've just been reading about the mothers at https://www.facebook.com/turkishprotestsnews , truly awe inspiring

I was expecting Diziet to be a Turkish reference (we used to have a number of Turkish visitors back in 2003 when we played Genclerbirligi), but I see it's probably an obscure Ian M Banks reference, so not surprising he's in people's minds at the moment.

[glen9mullan]

Really sad seeing what's happening out in Turkey .

I lived there for 3 months in 2008 and the people are just wonderful.

Really friendly and looked after Laura and I throughout our time out there .

Hope everyone stays safe and common sense prevails

[diziet2]

an update:

Well we are into new territory now.

Unexpectedly Erdogan after issuing his final warning that Gezi park was to be cleansed of protesters and calling for mother mother to take their children home things all went a bit weird

Protesters were scared to death some shaking but were not going to move and waited for the coming beating from the police.

Then 1000,s of Mothers joined the protest to for a human chain to protect their children and Gezi park form the police.

A famous pianist brought a piano near to the ataturk statue and with the police looking on began a 3-4 hour concert playing beautifully, classic music , modern music all sorts. As he got tired other pianists in the crowd took over to perform for 5 or 10 mins while others gave him food.

When the last call to prayer sounded out of the mosques at about 10:45pm, everyone was quiet and the music stopped for the 5 mins out of respect.

around 10,000 were in Taksim park and Gezı defying Erdogans order.

In suprise move, Erdogan asked to speak to representatives of the protesters. Initially artists and musicians etc, but they refused to attend unless the real representatives of the Gezi movement were represented (this being Taksim solidarity). Off they went 8 of them to Ankara to meet the prime minister. Was this a ploy? who knew? After 4 hours of talks so form of tentative agreement seems to have been struck.

1. The development would be stopped while judges looked at the legality of it.

2. If the judgement decides the project is legal (they rule it is illegal at the moment)then it will be put to a local referendum of the people of Istanbul.

At the same time the mayor of Istanbul sent his phone number by twitter and via twitter invited protesters to meet him at a nearby cafe for a round-the-table talks. THis also lasted a few hours and ended with the mayor agreeing to visit the gezi park camp.

So where does this leave things?

1. Can the government be trusted to honour their agreements after they have broken previous ones?

2. Erdogan has the power to replace the judges and put ones favourable to him in place to make the decision

3. Would a possible referendum on Gezi park get rigged?

On top of this earlier in the week, Erdogan called for counter demonstrations in Ankara and Istanbul as a show of power. Now is this compromise a delaying tactic to wait for his support to get here? is it all a ploy?

Whichever way, my take on it now is he has lost this battle of authority. People are no longer afraid of the gas and the rubber bullets the mothers came out. Any move on Gezi and the people of the city will come to defend. mothers, sons, daughters and fathers. I have seen them all there.

After this if he or his party try to push something onto the general masses again my view is they will raise up again.

The control of the media and censorship remains a big worry though.

let us see what the weekend brings but the threat of the police being able to club and gas peopleout of Gezi is over.

[Silas]

i can only salute the people of turkey.. good on 'em!

Yep, fair play to them, they are not going to be ignored are they. Loving the mothers forming a human chain, great stuff.

Don't want to be negative, but there is simply no way I could ever see that happening in this country. We simply don't seem to have the togetherness a lot of other nations do.

It is very much an every man for himself attitude in this country. Whether that is due to the diversity of our country and the high levels of immigration, or simply because of the way we have developed as a society I don't know.

I just get the feeling that our government could pretty much do what they wanted and most of us would sit there and swallow it, allbeit we would do a hell of a lot of moaning at the same time - but taking action?!, nah, doesn't seem to be our thing.

Sad really, how spineless we have become.

Good luck to the Turkish and I hope they get the result they are seeking.

[Stuart]

Amazing stuff "diziet" ( ).

What I don't understand is why the supermarket company or group haven't pulled out of the planned move. Who are their customers going to be? Surely shopping such a place would be a complete no-no?

Don't want to be negative, but there is simply no way I could ever see that happening in this country. We simply don't seem to have the togetherness a lot of other nations do.

It is very much an every man for himself attitude in this country. Whether that is due to the diversity of our country and the high levels of immigration, or simply because of the way we have developed as a society I don't know.

I just get the feeling that our government could pretty much do what they wanted and most of us would sit there and swallow it, allbeit we would do a hell of a lot of moaning at the same time - but taking action?!, nah, doesn't seem to be our thing.

Sad really, how spineless we have become.

I think you slightly underestimate people there. It's just that the tolerance levels of what we put up with, before reacting, are probably quite high. The Gezi park situation seems to be the straw that has broken the camel's back. I'm sure there would be a similar one here if we had the same scenario.

[diziet2]

Yep, fair play to them, they are not going to be ignored are they. Loving the mothers forming a human chain, great stuff.

Don't want to be negative, but there is simply no way I could ever see that happening in this country. We simply don't seem to have the togetherness a lot of other nations do.

It is very much an every man for himself attitude in this country. Whether that is due to the diversity of our country and the high levels of immigration, or simply because of the way we have developed as a society I don't know.

I just get the feeling that our government could pretty much do what they wanted and most of us would sit there and swallow it, allbeit we would do a hell of a lot of moaning at the same time - but taking action?!, nah, doesn't seem to be our thing.

Sad really, how spineless we have become.

Good luck to the Turkish and I hope they get the result they are seeking.

i think it is more because people actually have a free press a freedom of speech and a right to demonstrate with fear of being tear-gased.

Honestly I can say this now that I am out of the UK for nearly 2 years. As much as people moan about restrictions on freedom and problems in the country, surprisingly compared to much of the world, the in the UK, america and the west we really do have genuine freedoms and democracy.

The problems I think people have about it is not realsing that democracy can be tricky and uncomfortable. For instance one person gets really irate abour something and thinks democracy is not working because many do not join him/her... what is actually happening is most people simply do not agree with the person. They do not shout them down they just don't support.

The last time some thing had not been represented by democracy was the fuel tax protest. that was a movement that hit a natural unrepresented view and gained a majority backing. the government had to climb down.

I think the people were not happy with the iraq war but wearingly took the 45 min claim on face value. Once to proved to be wrong the general public were out for tony blair and against the war. hence why it was such an unpopular war.

I would say though the initial Afghan interverntion was supported. but i am going off topic.

so in Brita'n we don't need mothers coming out to protest because we already enjoy these freedoms.

THe UK is not without its problems and some are serious problems. but over all it is a better place than many places in the world.

Amazing stuff "diziet" ( ).

What I don't understand is why the supermarket company or group haven't pulled out of the planned move. Who are their customers going to be? Surely shopping such a place would be a complete no-no?

I think you slightly underestimate people there. It's just that the tolerance levels of what we put up with, before reacting, are probably quite high. The Gezi park situation seems to be the straw that has broken the camel's back. I'm sure there would be a similar one here if we had the same scenario.

there was talk about companies who would have shops in the new mall becoming very jumpy about it.

I think though I could find some space to run a small jordan rhodes souvenir kiosks,.. Cups with slogans on like "jordan rhodes goes capulinging!".... " Mrs D says she will not sell to a divisional rival.. maybe?" .....