[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUe8Tq0QOYM[/youtube]

Τίποτα δεν είναι ανεκτό από το τουρκικό κράτος. Όπως άλλωστε και από το ελληνικό, το αιγυπτιακό, το βραζιλιάνικο… Βρισκόμαστε στην περίοδο που επιβεβαιώνεται ο “α-συστημικός” χαρακτήρας της διεκδίκησης…

Περιγραφή των γεγονότων από το postvirtual

Istanbul, July 7

Dear people,

It’s not hard to predict the weather once you get to Taksim Square. Yesterday evening it was obvious straight away that there was tear gas in the air.

Police had blocked all the exits and kept considerable reserves in the park and in the square itself. For streaming purposes we took up position from one of the terraces. We saw the communists marching down Istiklal street behind a banner that was obviously inspired by the events in Egypt. “Government resign”, it said.

After the communists came the anarchists of çArşı. After them came the representatives of Taksim Solidarity. They brought the court order, which declared the redevelopment of Taksim and Gezi Park to be illegal. They showed it to the line of riot police and demanded access to the square. In response, they got showered by a toma (water cannon, literally the abbreviation in Turkish means ‘device for intervention in social situations’).

At that point the crowd had grown as far as the eye could reach. To disperse it, police attacked from behind. A roaring toma came steaming down the street, flushing people into the alleys. When Istiklal was cleared, the attack continued on the far side of the square where another crowd had gathered. It took a while, but then silence fell, and all that was left was a the desolate image of Taksim under police occupation.

Attack on the far side.

I decided to go down to look for action. At a time like this, I want to be among the people. I exit through two lines of police, into Istiklal Street. Not surprisingly, most shops had closed. Some of them had their shutters half way down, to quickly accommodate people seeking shelter from gas attacks. A small perfume shop continued business as usual.

When there’s civil unrest in Istanbul, you will witness four types of vehicles that you don’t usually encounter in a shopping street. Toma’s, ambulances, bulldozers (to clear barricades), and small panzer vehicles.

The panzer vehicles have a turret on top, you can see the helmet of a gunner sticking out of it. It races back and forth, slowing down at the intersections to allow the gunner to shoot tear gas into the side streets. In some cases his aim is faulty, resulting in shattering glass as the cannisters hit the windows of a shop, a bar or a home. The mini panzers also serve as a supply vehicle for the troops. They pull up at a police platoon, someone opens the back door and quickly hands out fresh tear gas cannisters to the officers.

Somewhere half way down the street I join a crowd behind an improvised barricade of trash containers. They play along with the same old game of cat and mouse, retreating to the side streets and re-emerging after every police attack.