Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Corrib campaigner on hunger strike in Castlerea prison

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On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

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On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

On Wednes­day morn­ing the 12th of June Liam Hef­fer­nan — a cam­paign­er from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp — was arrest­ed at Augh­oose, Coun­ty Mayo under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act for alleged­ly obstruct­ing Shell con­struc­tion vehi­cles with­out law­ful author­i­ty or rea­son­able excuse.

At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion Mr. Hef­fer­nan was offered to enter into a bail bond with the con­di­tion that he stay away from the Shell tun­nelling com­pound at Augh­oose. After refus­ing this extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion, he was remand­ed to Catlerea prison, Co. Roscom­mon for two days until the court sat on Fri­day morn­ing last.

In Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, Mr. Hef­fer­nan, defend­ing him­self, read a state­ment to the court say­ing that he believed he was being ille­gal­ly detained and informed the Judge of some of the his­to­ry of the Cor­rib gas project and his rea­sons for protest­ing at Augh­oose. The Judge replied that he should take up these issues with the High Court and/or the Gov­ern­ment. At this point Mr. Hef­fer­nan accept­ed to enter into the bail con­di­tions set out by the Judge and to appear before Bel­mul­let Dis­trict Court on the 10th of July.

The Judge how­ev­er found prob­lems with Mr. Hef­fer­nan’s sig­na­ture and remand­ed the cam­paign­er in cus­tody until the next sit­ting of Har­ris­town court.

Today, Thurs­day the 20th of June, marks Liam’s ninth day in prison and fourth day on hunger strike. Sup­port­ers of Liam are invit­ed to attend Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, tomor­row,  Fri­day the 21st of June at 10.30am

 

Shell speedboats ram and sink kayaker for Corrib gas project

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

The Gar­dai are allow­ing Shell increas­ing­ly to police the protests them­selves, by using their pri­vate secu­ri­ty force — IRMS, and at sea, so called extra “safe­ty” boats.

Do you want pri­vate mili­tias oper­at­ing in Ire­land at the behest of the most pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions in the world?

If not you are wel­come to come to Mayo, check out the sit­u­a­tion for your­self, and if you like add your skill, cre­ativ­i­ty and time to the resis­tance.

Berlin-Kreuzberg: Soli-demo for the revolt in Turkey (Germany)

15/06/13

Berlin-Kreuzberg salutes the peo­ple revolt­ing in Turkey

15/06/13

Berlin-Kreuzberg salutes the peo­ple revolt­ing in Turkey

Every­day since the begin­ning of the revolt about two weeks ago, peo­ple went on the streets in Berlin to show their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the ongo­ing fights in Turkey. Anoth­er short and wild demon­stra­tion took place in the cen­ter of Kreuzberg yes­ter­day evening, the 7th of June, where around 50 peo­ple marched towards Kot­tbusser Tor, shout­ing slo­gans and light­ing fire­works.

Mate­r­i­al from a con­struc­tion site got pulled on the street, so after a short while the traf­fic was blocked in every direc­tion. The cops, that were mak­ing a dru­graid at this moment, got attacked with stones, paint­bombs and fire. After that the mob dis­persed.

Short­ly before the demon­stra­tors reached Kot­tbusser Tor, leaflets were spread in the close area. The text was writ­ten in turk­ish and ger­man and cir­cu­lat­ed some days before fri­days action. Ban­ners were hung up as well say­ing „Berlin salutes Istan­bul-for social revolt world­wide“ and „Özgür­lük için omuz omuza!“ („Side by side towards free­dom“). As was writ­ten in the news­pa­pers two peo­ple got arrest­ed by the cops and released the next day.

We send our sol­i­dar­i­ty to them as well, since they are fac­ing the repres­sion of the police and the state jus­tice sys­tem.

We will be back again, where, when and how we want. Take part in the demon­stra­tions, pre­pare actions and show the rebels that we are fight­ing on their side, just in a dif­fer­ent city.

Our thoughts are with the fam­i­lies, friends and com­rades of Mehmet Ayvalı­taş, Abdul­lah Cömert and Ethem Sarısülük, that got killed dur­ing the revolt.

Free­dom for the pris­on­ers!

Side by side towards free­dom!

The leaflet that was hand­ed out:

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the revolt­ing peo­ple

Peo­ple flock the streets, bar­ri­cades are set up, cars are burn­ing and every­thing thats not fixed gets thrown at the police. The sky is cloud­ed by tear­gas and a scream for free­dom makes its way through the dust.
The planned destruc­tion of one of the last green spots in Istan­bul, to have a shop­ping mall instead, was the spark that brought thou­sand of peo­ple on the streets for resis­tance. Until now the revolt spread like a wild­fire all over the coun­try.

No mat­ter how dif­fer­ent the moti­va­tions and rea­sons of every­one involved may be, they open new spaces of self-orga­ni­za­tion, sol­i­dar­i­ty and con­tro­ver­sy by burst­ing the exis­tent.
All these things that are rarely hap­pen­ing in this world as we know it. Between school, work, pay­ing your rent, feed­ing your fam­i­ly and so on, it looks like there is no time to dis­pute with the destruc­tion of our envi­ron­ment.
We like the fact, that there are peo­ple that still doing exact­ly that. As we can see, the small fights in your dai­ly life can be the trig­ger of a gen­er­al upris­ing.
We are rec­og­niz­ing the smoke sig­nals of the cities and we see these fights match­ing up with our own ones- against dis­place­ment, degra­da­tion and police vio­lence.
That’s why we call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of the upris­ing. Let them see the sig­nals on Bosporus as well, so that they are not all one.

Side by side towards free­dom! (A)

Reclaim the Fields and Climate camp 2013 in Colone, Germany

Reclaim the Fields and AusgeCO2hlt invite you to an action­camp in Rhineland, close to Cologne (Ger­many), from 23.8. until 6.9. 2013.

Reclaim the Fields and AusgeCO2hlt invite you to an action­camp in Rhineland, close to Cologne (Ger­many), from 23.8. until 6.9. 2013. For three days we will take col­lec­tive direct action against the open cast min­ing in Rhineland. Fur­ther­more there will be a pro­gram includ­ing dif­fer­ent prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal work­shops, dis­cus­sions and a lot more.

 

http://www.reclaimthefields.org/camp2013

On the back­ground of the strug­gles in Rhineland we want to facil­i­tate an exchange of dis­si­dent knowl­edge and action.We invite to 14 days of net­work­ing, col­lec­tive learn­ing and dis­cus­sion as well as prac­ti­cal activ­i­ties to exchange knowl­edge and skills and to resist in the Rhineland.

Apart from the three days of action there will be a lot of space for Work­shops and get­ting to know each oth­er to cre­ate new links.The Camp is a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry process and waits for your con­tri­bu­tion! We are look­ing for­ward to your ideas, con­tents and skills to cre­ate a pro­gram togeth­er.

You are artists, activists, peas­ants, urban gar­den­ers, are liv­ing on a col­lec­tive farm or are active in polit­i­cal cam­paigns or groups? You want to share you expe­ri­ences, pass and broad­en your knowl­edge? Then you are wel­come to do this in the course of work­shops, dis­cus­sions, prac­ti­cal work or in oth­er ways.

We look for­ward to alter­na­tive ideas on top­ics like col­lec­tive and sol­i­dariy form of liv­ing and work­ing beyond cap­i­tal­ism and struc­tures of exploita­tion. Every­thing that strength­ens our diverse dai­ly and orga­nized resis­tance is wel­come.

Con­tact us at pro­gram (at) reclaimthefields.org

Some poten­tial themes for work­shops to inspire you:

food­sou­ver­eign­ty // right wing pol­i­tics in eco move­ment // ani­mal rights/animal Lib­er­a­tion // self-sup­ply/-suf­fi­cien­cy // self-organ­i­sa­tion // access to land // con­nect­ing urban and rur­al strug­gles // urban sup­ply of rur­al col­lec­tives (Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture, Non-Com­mer­cial Agri­cul­ture) // per­ma­cul­ture // Pri­vate Prop­er­ties – Com­mons // His­to­ry and devel­op­ment of Agri­cul­ture: Agri­cul­ture and Cap­i­tal­ism (Green Rev­o­lu­tion) // land lib­er­a­tion through pur­chase of land (dif­fer­ent means of access to land: squat­ting, buy­ing, etc) // how to organ­ise strug­gles, „how to do resistance“/share and learn forms of resis­tance // ener­gy // botany/knowlegde of herbs and plants

What is Ausgeco2hlt?

Our Cam­paign sees itself as an open plat­form where dif­fer­ent groups and indi­vid­u­als can net­work with each oth­er, edu­cate them­selves and take col­lec­tive action. Our aim is to orga­nize a broad protest move­ment against RWE¹ and for the imme­di­ate shut down of the open cast mines in the Rhineland coal fields.

We see the protest against brown coal as part of a glob­al cli­mate move­ment against Coal-ener­gy, the exploita­tion of shale gas, Car­bon-diox­ide stor­age, etc. and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with ener­gy strug­gles against fos­sil-nuclear cap­i­tal­ism.

We are con­vinced that in order to facil­i­tate a true ener­gy trans­for­ma­tion, monop­o­lised pow­er struc­tures have to be ques­tioned and we have to change the rules of the game of the con­cur­rent econ­o­my, built upon lim­it­less growth and con­sump­tion of resources.Thus we sup­port ini­tia­tives for self-deter­mined ways of liv­ing as an alter­na­tive to super­flu­ous con­sump­tion. At the same time we demand a col­lec­tiviza­tion of ener­gy com­pa­nies and a decen­tral­ized ener­gy sup­ply with renew­able ener­gies.

What is Reclaim the Fields?

Reclaim the Fields is a europewide con­stel­la­tion of peas­ants, land­less and prospec­tive peas­ants, as well as peo­ple who are tak­ing back con­trol over food production.We sup­port and encour­age peo­ple to stay on the land and go back to the coun­try­side. We pro­mote food sov­er­eign­ty (as defined in the Nyéléni dec­la­ra­tion) and peas­ant agri­cul­ture, as well as alter­na­tive ways of life.We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real-needs-ori­ent­ed, small-scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives. We are putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.

Seeds

The “Reclaim the seeds” work­ing group invites peo­ple to come with self­pro­duced seeds and any doc­u­ment they think would be nice to share. With the prac­tise of seed swap’s we want to reflect about the sub­ject of seeds col­lec­tive­ly.

A Camp wel­com­ing Chil­dren

The Camp is meant to be a chil­dren friend­ly space, where chil­dren and their affin­i­ty per­sons have a space and are includ­ed in actions, the pro­gram and oth­er camp activ­i­ties. We are aware that polit­i­cal actions and camps often con­tain obsta­cles for par­ents and affin­i­ty per­son of chil­dren and thus exclude them. Tak­ing into account the real needs of chil­dren and affin­i­ty per­sons we want to cre­ate a space for every­one. Please feel wel­come to come to the camp and par­tic­i­pate! We would be hap­py if you would get in touch with us before­hand in order to talk about an ade­quate arrange­ment.

No space for Racism or Sex­ism – Not at the Camp nor any­where else

The camp explic­it­ly takes a stand against Sex­ism and Racism as well as oth­er forms of dom­i­na­tion on the basis of hier­ar­chi­cal social cat­e­gories, the camp posi­tions itself deter­mi­nant against sex­ist and racist acts.

Costs of the Camp

We try to orga­nize the camp as low-cost as pos­si­ble but are depen­dent on your sol­i­dar­i­ty con­tri­bu­tions. Please get in touch with us if you want to come but the trav­el is too expen­sive for you. We want to make it pos­si­ble for every­body to come and share trav­el costs in a col­lec­tive man­ner, but can not guar­an­tee any­thing.

Visa

If you need a Visa to get to the camp an want to be sup­port­ed in that case, get in touch with us at – camp2013_AT_reclaimthefields.org

Infor­ma­tion and con­tact

More, up to date, infor­ma­tion about the pro­gram, how to get to the camp, food, camp­ing, etc. can be found at www.reclaimthefield.org/camp/2013

Through the mailadress camp2013_AT_reclaimthefields.org you can reach us with ques­tions about the camp.

For work­shops please write to program[at]reclaimthefields.org.

For more infor­ma­tion about RtF and Ausgeco2hlt vis­it: reclaimthefields.org and ausgeco2hlt.de

Reg­is­ter for the camp at: reclaimthefields.org/registration

The more peo­ple reg­is­ter the eas­i­er it is for us to plan!

Feel free to for­ward this call to indi­vid­u­als or groups you know and come to the camp!

Resis­tance is fer­tile!

Your Camp-Organ­i­sa­tion

 

¹RWE is Ger­manys sec­ond biggest ener­gy sup­ply con­cern, that keeps on using cole as th main ener­gy and has com­pared to oth­er euro­pean com­pa­nies a very low share of regen­er­a­tive ener­gies in the mix of ener­gies. RWE is being criti­sised of doing gree­wash­ing with “cli­mate cam­paigns” whilst through open cast min­ing a lot of nature and towns are being destroyed, aswell as low­er­ing the ground­wa­ter.

Riot Police Raid Gezi Gardens and Evict Treesits

Police removing tree-sitter.

14/06/13.

Police removing tree-sitter.

14/06/13. Police remov­ing tree-sit­ter.

As police in Turkey con­tin­ue to try and remove peo­ple from Gezi Park in Istan­bul, last night over 100 riot police raid­ed the encamp­ment at Fell and Lagu­na, arrest­ing 7 peo­ple, removed tree sit­ters, and destroyed crops and struc­tures. A seen in one video, one tree-sit­ter fell from their tree while being removed, although it is unclear if they have any seri­ous injuries.

Accord­ing to Lib­er­ate the Land, “Folks are gath­er­ing at Patricia’s Green on Octavia Street between Hayes Street and Fell Street now after a night time light­ning raid by SFPD on #Gezi­Gar­dens, the for­mer site of Hayes Val­ley Farm on Oak and Lagu­na Streets, with guns drawn. Folks who just went through the raid and sup­port­ers need food, a kitchen, sleep­ing bags, ban­ner mak­ing mate­ri­als, paint, etc. Come gath­er with us today, meet up for a dis­cus­sion at 6pm, and def­i­nite­ly plan to come here Fri­day at 6pm for a recon­ver­gence. Let it build.”

 

Police blocking of street in front of garden

Police block­ing of street in front of gar­den

Police appear to have the area around the gar­den blocked off while they destroy the rest of the encamp­ment. As was planned, peo­ple will con­tin­ue to gath­er at Octavia and Fell Streets to pre­pare to retake the land on Fri­day at 6pm. Peo­ple are encour­aged to take part in the mobi­liza­tion and bring sup­plies if they are not able to make it out. Occu­piers have planned a week­end long fes­ti­val from Sat­ur­day to Mon­day, to coin­cide with the con­struc­tion of the new devel­op­ment on the site of the gar­den.

Protester received a black eye from SFPD

Pro­test­er received a black eye from SFPD

As usu­al, most main­stream media reports are now herald­ing the raid, por­tray­ing pro­test­ers as out of town idiot hip­pies with no com­mu­ni­ty sup­port what-so-ever. Inter­est­ing how when hun­dreds, includ­ing many locals came through the gates for a fes­ti­val last Sat­ur­day, most media was remark­ably absent. The media loves a good protest sto­ry, but they love the hap­py end­ing of the gov­ern­ment com­ing in, crack­ing skulls, and send­ing those that would dare resist to jail. It’s a tale that they con­stant­ly repeat and it serves as a warn­ing to any­one else that would dare stand up to the forces of the state and busi­ness as to where strug­gling will get you.

The lux­u­ry con­do devel­op­ment which is slat­ed to take place where the gar­den now stands will be part of an onslaught of devel­op­ments which will add to the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of San Fran­cis­co and the con­tin­ued dis­place­ment of many of the cur­rent res­i­dents. As the Guardian recent­ly wrote: “Region­al plan­ners want to put 280,000 more peo­ple into San Fran­cis­co — and they admit that many cur­rent res­i­dents will have to leave.”

Police and protesters outside of Gezi Gardens

Police and pro­test­ers out­side of Gezi Gar­dens

While the con­struc­tion plans call for half of the site to be “afford­able hous­ing,” this is based on half of the medi­an income of the city, which is around $60,000, still much more than many peo­ple, includ­ing many fam­i­lies are able to make in the city. Trust me, if some Hayes Val­ley Res­i­dents are uncom­fort­able rub­bing elbows with Occu­py pro­tes­tors work­ing a toma­to plant, they aren’t going to allow a fam­i­ly from the Ten­der­loin or Hunter’s Point to move in next door.

San Fran­cis­co is still a city swim­ming with thou­sands of vacant prop­er­ties. Accord­ing to the San Fran­cis­co Busi­ness Times, “[The city] has more than 30,000 emp­ty homes accord­ing to 2010 U.S. Cen­sus data. That means about 8.3 per­cent or about one in every dozen homes is vacant — more than any oth­er sur­round­ing coun­ty.” There is a rea­son for all the vacant homes as many are tak­en off the mar­ket by land­lords so they will not be rent con­trolled or pur­pose­ly made emp­ty so they can be con­vert­ed into con­dos through the Ellis Act. As in Turkey, the strug­gle at Gezi Gar­dens is not just over green space or a few trees, but a class strug­gle over the pow­er of wealthy and pow­er­ful peo­ple to con­trol and exploit our lives.   

The strug­gle at Gezi Gar­dens is still far from over. See you on the streets Fri­day!

gezigardens5

 

The Horrific Extent of Police Brutality in Turkey

endthelie.com

8/6/13.

endthelie.com

8/6/13. What you will read below is extreme­ly dis­turb­ing. It is the first­hand impres­sions of a Boğaz­içi (Bospho­rus) Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent who was detained by police in con­nec­tion with the Gezi Park inci­dents in Istan­bul.

Erkan Yolalan first thanks every­body who has assist­ed him, espe­cial­ly to those who fetched him a lawyer.
Here is his sto­ry:

“I am at home, I’m fine. I want to write what I went through. My only aim is that every­body knows what is being expe­ri­enced while in deten­tion. I have no oth­er aim; I want to say that at the begin­ning. I will write all of the events that hap­pened to me from the begin­ning and with all swear words and insults includ­ed. With all its open­ness…

“Last night (June 3, 2013) around 9 p.m. I was detained in Beşik­taş, at traf­fic lights on Bar­baros Avenue. I was not involved in any action like swear­ing or throw­ing stones. They took me in bend­ing my arm the moment they saw me. Some friends of mine saw on TV how I was tak­en into cus­tody. Then hell began.

“After cross­ing the lights in the direc­tion of the sea­side, while I was at the edge of the plat­form where the IETT bus stops are at the sea­side, any police­man who was there and any riot police squad mem­ber (çevik kuvvet) who saw me start­ed kick­ing and punch­ing me. For about 100–150 meters, in oth­er words, all the way to the Kadıköy fer­ry sta­tion, who­ev­er was present there was kick­ing and punch­ing. Insults and curs­es such as ‘Are you the ones to save this coun­try, moth­er f***, sons of ****,’ nev­er end­ed. I could not count how many peo­ple hit me before I reached the deten­tion bus.

“Just as I was tak­en near the bus­es, a few police­men called from behind a bus, ‘Bring him here.’ They took me behind the bus and start­ed kick­ing and punch­ing me there. I learned lat­er that because of the cam­eras they took me behind the bus to beat me.

“When I was inside the deten­tion bus (İETT) the lights were out, and I heard a girl’s voice beg­ging inside the bus: ‘I did not do any­thing, sir.’ I could not even see who was hit­ting me as I was tak­en inside the bus and after I was in the bus. The only thing I was able to do in the dark was to cov­er my head. Curs­es and insults con­tin­ued. I sat. Every­one who was pass­ing near me was hit­ting me. I got up and went to a cor­ner. They want­ed me to take a seat again. I told them every­one who passed by was hit­ting me when I was seat­ed.

They again swore, slapped and punched me and made me sit. 

“They were hit­ting the girl and throt­tling her. A civil­ian police­man whose name is İsm­ail said exact­ly this to the girl, ‘I will bend you over and f*** you right now.’ [He – Erkan Yolalan- lat­er added that this police­man İsm­ail also said, “Now that it is dark and the lights are off I will ****”] 

“And the response of the girl was heart­break­ing. With a low voice, she could only say ‘Yes, sir.’
“And next, we, the three peo­ple present at the bus, were forced to shout: ‘I love the Turk­ish police. I love my coun­try.’ They made us yell this again and again ordered us to make it ‘loud­er, loud­er.’ The insults and beat­ing did not come to an end.

“The atmos­phere seemed a bit calmer, but this time they brought anoth­er young per­son. The guy’s nose was bro­ken. When I asked him why he didn’t pro­tect his face, he told me ‘Two peo­ple held me by force and a third per­son punched my nose three times.’ From time to time there were oth­ers brought in. 

“A young per­son named Mustafa from Bahçeşe­hir Uni­ver­si­ty was brought then. Twen­ty police­men from the riot squad had attacked him, and he looked too weak even to stand up. Slap­ping and punch­ing him near the deten­tion bus was not enough for them, they hit his head with a hel­met. That was not enough either, they hit his head on the bus win­dow. They took him inside the bus while con­tin­u­ous­ly hit­ting him. His hands were cuffed from behind; his head was bleed­ing; they made him sit on the floor. 

“We saw his head bleed­ing. I went near him and held a cloth (the bloody t‑shirt of the guy whose nose was bro­ken) to his wound to stop the bleed­ing. This police named Süley­man cursed at me and told me to ‘f*** off’ to my seat. I told him, ‘He is bleed­ing.’ He said, ‘He can bleed.’ He did not care at all. They were hold­ing the guy in hand­cuffs with all his injuries. We point­ed that out to a cou­ple of police­men. Final­ly, one of them opened the cuffs.

“Actu­al­ly the sec­ond heart­break­ing inci­dent hap­pened when we were at the police sta­tion for state­ments. Mustafa asked me this: ‘Did they hit me at the bus? What hap­pened?’ The guy could not remem­ber. He was not ful­ly con­scious while he was on the bus.

“As a last point, we could not go to the toi­let while we were at the bus. They only gave us a bot­tle of water. Then we were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for doctor’s reports and then to the police sta­tion.  

“Once we were at the police sta­tion, an army of lawyers was wait­ing for us. And the police­men now were talk­ing to us on polite terms.

“I want to thank all the lawyers, all our friends who called the lawyers and every­body who was wor­ried about us. There is not a bit of an exag­ger­a­tion in this piece. Every­thing that has been expe­ri­enced is true and my only aim is for every­body to hear it first­hand.

Revolt against bru­tal­i­ty is con­tin­u­ing. This fas­cist order will be destroyed.”

I Am Writing To You On the Motor Hood of a Knocked-over Police Car, Taksim Square 4th June

A barricade in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey

A bar­ri­cade in Tak­sim Square, Istan­bul, Turkey

A barricade in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey

A bar­ri­cade in Tak­sim Square, Istan­bul, Turkey

Rais­ing Our Voic­es in Tak­sim Square

What began in Turkey sev­en days ago as the takeover of Gezi Park turned into a nation­al upris­ing from Istan­bul to oth­er major cities. A small protest to pro­tect pub­lic space – which the gov­ern­ment had ordered to be razed to make room for a shop­ping mall – unit­ed a wide range of cit­i­zens protest­ing what they see as the Prime Minister’s pro-busi­ness, author­i­tar­i­an, and reli­gious poli­cies. Tomor­row, June 4, the pub­lic sec­tor union coali­tion, KESK, will strike in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the protests.

This is a first-hand account from Tak­sim Square in Istan­bul, writ­ten by trade union leader Kıvanç Eli­açık, orig­i­nal­ly post­ed at Equal Times.

My trade union, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Work­er Unions Con­fed­er­a­tion of Turkey (DISK), is part of a plat­form with pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions and neigh­bor­hood organ­i­sa­tions.

This plat­form protests the con­struc­tion work in Tak­sim Square, Istan­bul, that will demol­ish the park there, replac­ing it with a shop­ping cen­tre.

When I heard that bull­doz­ers came and cut the trees in the park on Tues­day, I ran to the park.

Instead of shut­ting down the ille­gal con­struc­tion – the court revoked the con­struc­tion project – the police used tear gas against peo­ple who want to save the trees.

On that first night, we took tents and sleep­ing bags and went to the park. We sang and chat­ted till dawn. In the evening, thou­sands of peo­ple were gath­ered. A con­cert took place on a stage.

We were dis­cussing urban regen­er­a­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, human rights and work­ers’ rights. The high­light of all these dis­cus­sions was that they are all the result of gov­ern­ment poli­cies. An ever-chang­ing and grow­ing com­mit­tee was estab­lished.

When I woke up in the morn­ing the camp was drowned into tear gas and every­one was run­ning around. The police set the tents on fire. They uproot­ed the saplings that were plant­ed a day before. The bull­doz­ers were work­ing under the pro­tec­tion of riot police.

We did not want to get revenge. Some­one was read­ing a nov­el to the police using a mega­phone that was saved from the fire. Anoth­er per­son was ask­ing “why did you set my gui­tar on fire?” but by singing.

When we suc­ceed­ed in enter­ing the park we set up big­ger tents. In the evening there were tens of thou­sands peo­ple in the Square. Renowned musi­cians can­celled their con­certs and came to the park.

Peo­ple from var­i­ous views came togeth­er: peo­ple and work­ers on strike from regions that have been harmed by cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment greed; foot­ball fans; rad­i­cal left par­ties; stu­dent organ­i­sa­tions; fem­i­nists; anar­chists; and veg­ans.

The fol­low­ing night we were bet­ter pre­pared. The garbage was peri­od­i­cal­ly cleared. Vol­un­teer secu­ri­ty staff were on patrol. Women were able to walk com­fort­ably in the camp area.

The government’s new alco­hol reg­u­la­tions [Turkey’s pres­i­dent is this week expect­ed to approve strict leg­is­la­tion that will pro­hib­it the sale of alco­hol in shops between 22.00 and 06.00, ban all alco­hol adver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tion, and stop new shops and bars from open­ing with­in 100m of schools and mosques] con­vert­ed drink­ing to a polit­i­cal action. Peo­ple were chant­i­ng slo­gans, on the oth­er hand they were singing songs, and drink­ing.

Towards the morn­ing hun­dreds of gog­gles, gas masks, lemon, vine­gar, home-made anti-tear gas solu­tions pre­pared by stom­ach pills were dis­trib­uted.

There were thou­sands of peo­ple in the park when the police attacked at 05.00 in the morn­ing. There were no warn­ings and sud­den­ly we were unable to see any­thing. We evac­u­at­ed the park in-line with the plan we made ear­li­er.

Clash­es in the street con­tin­ued till morn­ing. I man­aged to sneak in the park qui­et­ly, tak­ing advan­tage of the tired police. I watched the Bospho­rus sip­ping my tea in the shad­ow of a tree. I hope it won’t be the last time I see this view.

The pro­tes­tors tried to enter the park by gath­er­ing in back streets again and again. The police pre­vent­ed them by using exces­sive use of force. The whole city turned into a ral­ly are­na. Some demon­stra­tors walked the Bospho­rus Bridge that con­nects Asia and Europe.

So, who are these peo­ple that gath­ered in the square? It won’t be true to say that these peo­ple have com­mon views and com­mon aims. The only com­mon thing was they were angry to the gov­ern­ment… The police vio­lence against the youth who want­ed to pro­tect the trees trig­gered peo­ple and all the peo­ple who are against the gov­ern­ment were out on the streets.

Thou­sands of women and men who have not par­tic­i­pat­ed in a polit­i­cal demon­stra­tion before clashed with the police till late at night. The entered a new demon­stra­tion with­out event hav­ing break­fast.

With their home-made gas masks they revolt­ed against the police some­times by singing, some­times by swear­ing.

There were demon­stra­tors from wealthy fam­i­lies, but also unem­ployed peo­ple. There were peo­ple from Mus­lim asso­ci­a­tions and social­ist par­ties – every­one stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der.

Peo­ple, who sought refuge in the bar­ri­cades, were tweet­ing and upload­ing pho­tos to Insta­gram. Pupils were draw­ing nasty graf­fi­ti address­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan.

I met a cou­ple who were mak­ing plans for their wed­ding in the tele­phone booth where I shel­tered as rub­ber bul­lets rained down around me.

For the past five days, a grow­ing num­ber of demon­stra­tors are hav­ing fun and demon­strat­ing at the same time with­out sleep­ing or rest­ing. The most com­mon slo­gan chant­ed by the pro­tes­tors is “Resign Gov­ern­ment!”

Police vio­lence is not dri­ving us away. Fear has been defeat­ed now. We have learned to raise our voice when we are angry.

Some peo­ple are fight­ing, oth­ers are danc­ing. Some are lash­ing out drunk; oth­ers are col­lect­ing garbage and treat­ing stray ani­mals.

I do not know what is going to hap­pen tomor­row. But today is a new day and we are all new peo­ple.

What am I doing now? While tens of thou­sands of demon­stra­tors across the coun­try are ask­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to resign for many dif­fer­ent rea­sons, I am writ­ing to you on the motor hood of a knocked-over police car.

Kıvanç Eli­açık is the Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions Depart­ment of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Pro­gres­sive Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK).

 

A Few Inspiring Moments from Turkey, Occupy Gezi. 2nd June

There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger, there is a lot of bloodshed.

There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger, there is a lot of bloodshed.
But there is also a lot of beauty.

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Istanbul Government Truck, one of many destroyed last night. Graffiti reads "You are not innocent anymore" #gezi pic.twitter.com/yFAKG78SYL

Istan­bul Gov­ern­ment Truck. Graf­fi­ti reads “You are not inno­cent any­more” pic.twitter.com/yFAKG78SYL

 

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Clean up in Gezi Park

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Monsanto Set to Halt GMO Push in Europe 2nd June

The march against Mon­san­to,

The march against Mon­san­to, Ger­many. (Image from twit­ter user@@HarvestPM)

Mon­san­to plans to halt lob­by­ing for its genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plant vari­eties in Europe due to low demand from local farm­ers, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the US agri­cul­tur­al giant told a Ger­man dai­ly.

“We are no longer work­ing on lob­by­ing for more cul­ti­va­tion in Europe,” Bran­don Mitch­n­er a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Monsanto’s Euro­pean branch, Tageszeitung, said in an inter­view set to be pub­lished on Sat­ur­day.

“Cur­rent­ly we do not plan to apply for the approval of new genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. The rea­son is, among oth­er things, low demand of the farm­ers,” he con­tin­ued.

A spokes­woman for Mon­san­to Ger­many, Ursu­la Luttmer-Ouazane, admit­ted that Mon­san­to rec­og­nizes that GMO crops were cur­rent­ly not embraced on the Euro­pean mar­ket.

“We’ve under­stood that such plants don’t have any broad accep­tance in Euro­pean soci­eties,” Luttmer-Ouazane said. “It is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to fight against wind­mills,” she added.

A spokesper­son for the Ger­man Min­istry of Econ­o­my and Tech­nolo­gies described the move as an “entre­pre­neur­ial deci­sion” which need­ed no fur­ther com­ment. The min­istry added, how­ev­er, it has long made its oppo­si­tion to gene mod­i­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies known.

“The promis­es of the GM indus­try have not come true for Euro­pean agri­cul­ture, nor have they for the agri­cul­ture in devel­op­ing and emerg­ing economies,” the min­istry said in a state­ment.

Eight nation­al gov­ern­ments in the Euro­pean Union have already banned Monsanto’s MON810 maize and oth­er forms of GMO cul­ti­va­tion in their coun­tries under an envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion pro­vi­sion known as the ‘Safe­guard Clause’.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly fierce protests in Ger­many prompt­ed the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the mea­sures in 2009 due to con­cerns that such cul­ti­va­tion could lead to eco­log­i­cal degra­da­tion.

Monsanto’s rivals, such as Bay­er Crop­Science, BASF and Syn­gen­ta, had by and large pulled out of the Ger­man mar­ket because of large-scale pub­lic oppo­si­tion, the Ger­man dai­ly report­ed.

Aus­tria, Bul­gar­ia, France, Greece, Hun­gary, Lux­em­bourg and most recent­ly Poland are among oth­er EU mem­ber states enforc­ing the ban. In April, Italy joined the ranks of EU states look­ing to ban the cul­ti­va­tion of GM crops on its soil.

The march against Monsanto, Germany. (Image from twitter user@Julia_etc)

The march against Mon­san­to, Ger­many. (Image from twit­ter user@Julia_etc)

The announce­ment comes amidst a series of recent pub­lic rela­tions bat­tles that have brought the US firm con­sid­er­able world­wide atten­tion.

On Wednes­day, the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) said it had con­duct­ed genet­ic tests on wheat from an 80-acre farm in Ore­gon this past April. The tests revealed the wheat was an exper­i­men­tal vari­ety cre­at­ed by Mon­san­to that had nev­er been approved for sale.

The dis­cov­ery prompt­ed Japan­ese author­i­ties to can­cel part of a ten­der offer to buy US west­ern white wheat and have sus­pend­ed imports of both that vari­ety and feed wheat, while sev­er­al oth­er large importers of US-wheat through­out Asia said they were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

The Euro­pean Union for its part said it will test any incom­ing ship­ments, with plans to block those con­tain­ing GMO wheat.

The USDA announce­ment fol­lowed a mas­sive, glob­al “March Against Mon­san­to” held on Sat­ur­day that saw demon­stra­tions against the Mis­souri-based firm in 52 coun­tries.  Orga­niz­ers for the glob­al protest said around 2 mil­lion pro­test­ers showed up at ral­lies being held in 436 cities to protest against the seed giant and the genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food.

 

The march against Monsanto, Munich. (Image from twitter user@nasimjo)

The march against Mon­san­to, Munich. (Image from twit­ter user@nasimjo)

 

Plea from Turkey 1st June

Turkey’s protests against the log­ging of trees in  Gezi Park have grown into a nation-wide upheaval. The heavy-hand­ed police response, using tear gas and pep­per spray against bystanders and pro­tes­tors, alike, has ignit­ed a pro­found response against state repres­sion in Turkey.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ism in Turkey as well as East­ern Europe/West Asia has been on the rise in the last 5–10 years, and this mas­sive demon­stra­tion ris­ing from anti-log­ging protests presents a land­mark in the his­to­ry of this region.

Thou­sands of pro­tes­tors have swelled in the streets of every major city in Turkey. More sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions are planned from Ger­many to the US. From Athens to Lon­don, San Fran­cis­co to Boston, protests are already draw­ing thou­sands of peo­ple, and more are planned for the future.

Gezi Park is one of the small­est parks in Istan­bul, but the sym­bol­ic val­ue of replac­ing it with an Ottoman-style bar­racks aggra­vates the anti-impe­r­i­al dri­ve of the Turk­ish peo­ple. The police bru­tal­i­ty is shock­ing even to vet­er­ans of pro-democ­ra­cy strug­gles.

Here is an urgent mes­sage from an anony­mous source in Turkey right now: “I am writ­ing you all to ask that you please share any and all infor­ma­tion you can about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Istan­bul. There is des­per­ate need of int‘l sup­port from what I wit­nessed last night and from the news com­ing via social net­work­ing, etc. They are get­ting no domes­tic media atten­tion, and the Prime Min­is­ter has offered no expla­na­tions for the unprece­dent­ed police vio­lence. Gov‘t sup­port­ers also went com­plete­ly unchecked by police last night, beat­ing (and as i under­stand it) killing at least one pro­test­er on their walk home.”