June 13, 2013
After another night in which police forces cleared Gezi Park, hundreds of demonstrators have returned to “stand ground”.
This morning, the Turkish Prime Minister issued a “last warning” to protesters to leave Gezi Park, otherwise he would “clean” the park of “terrorists” within 24 hours. It looks as if the battle continues yet another night and probably longer, as the people on Taksim Square are not just fighting for their park anymore. On the one hand, Erdogan is faced with a wave of protest which has also swept across the rest of Turkey and is actively supported by tens of thousands of people – a development, no one could have anticipated. On the other hand, the Prime Minister has also received a lot of support from people, who see the protest as the wrong platform for change and credit him for his past achievements.
As with the “Arab Spring”, Twitter provides real-time updates about the protests from activists, journalists and (virtual) onlookers via Hashtags like #Taksimsquare, #gezipark or #occupygezi. The Prime Minister himself, who taunted social media as “worst menace to society” before, is also tweeting frequently under @RT_Erdogan. Although his use of the social network resembles a one-way street: 2,890,217 followers and following 0. A common but potentially dangerous mistake with any social media tool, as it could easily be interpreted as arrogance and an unwillingness to listen on Erdogan’s side.
Will the referendum suggested by AKP-speaker Hüseyin Celik be the right means to ensure two-way communication?
Photo: @resim77 under CC flickr.com