Istanbul Park Battle:Turkish tv channels covering all clashes in Taksim square / Breaking News
Istanbul’s busiest place Taksim square resembled a battlefield on Friday when Turkish riot police deployed tear gas and water cannon against thousands of protesters seeking to preserve a city centre park and all Turkish tv channels cover up this all clashes still continue.
According to some sources, three people were killed in clashes continue in Taksim Square. But the main television channels in Turkey cover up all this clashes because the Turkish people do not see them.
The AKP government is pressuring bosses TV channels blocked rebellions against the government through the media to show
Following several days of dawn police raids on the protesters seeking to occupy a park on Taksim Square in the city centre, the clashes escalated violently on Friday, leaving more than 100 people injured, several of them seriously.
There was widespread criticism of the heavy-handed intervention and of the government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is committed to demolishing the park to erect a new shopping centre.
With the city centre metro closed and one of the busiest shopping and tourist areas of Istanbul groggy with tear gas, there were also warnings that the government’s overreaction to what began as an environmental protest could turn more political.
The protest was unusual in that it brought together young and old, the rightwing and leftists, and nationalist Turks and Kurds. They complained of issues beyond the planned shopping centre from government policy on the war in neighbouring Syria to new curbs on alcohol and a recent row about kissing in public.
“We are fed up,” said Cansu Kahvecioglu, a student. “They don’t give us any breathing space anymore. The Gezi park was just the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Today is a turning point for the AKP,” said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Bosphorus University. “Erdogan is a very confident and very authoritarian politician, and he doesn’t listen to anyone anymore. But he needs to understand that Turkey is no kingdom, and that he cannot rule Istanbul from Ankara all by himself.”