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[Loud Whispers]

Assad is probably sitting in his Palace laughing his ass off. And possibly sending off messages along the line of "WHAT DID I TELL YOU? WHAT DID I FUCKING TELL YOU? MESS WITH ME AGAIN ASSHOLE." Turkey has been VERY anti-Assad, so it's more likely Irony, and the Turkish government ends up being a hypocrite.

Queue the Mossad theories in 3... 2... 1...

[Max White]

I personally think this uprising was actually planned out by Mossad.
Did you know a Mossad operative planned out the park where this all started? Think about it...

[Sigulbard]

God this is so interesting.

[Leatra]

Major labor unions of Turkey (DİSK and KESK for example) are gathering. Probability of a full-scale strike is high. Eğitim-Sen already took a decision to go to strike on 5 June. And I have exams this week...

People talked about how to build an EMP grenade in a Turkish live channel. They were complaining about the signal jammers police was carrying. They also talked about a protest movement tactic. According to them, one protestor should wear special construction gloves and carry a bucket full of water. Whenever a gas canister is being shot, the protestor should pick up the canister and throw it into the bucket. Water deactivates the gas bombs. A common tactic against armored police vehicles is getting a wet towel and sticking it to the exhaust. The cops inside have to leave the vehicle because of toxic gas after that. Another way to stop armored trucks is spraying paint to their cameras.

The same football fan club, Çarşı, have managed to liberated a TOMA (armored police truck capable of firing high-pressure water). I don't have the photos to support it, but I have been hearing this from everywhere.

Turkcell: We received political pressure to block communications in Turkey (English source)

Erdoğan said "They are spreading lies on social media and Twitter. [We] should hang these people on the trees there" Turkish source

A very close-up video of AKP's militia and police working together. The people there are not civil police. I saw a guy wearing a black mask similar to protestors. Civil police doesn't wear masks like that.

AKP loyalists following the cops again

You can see the cops' true intention here. They are trying to enter a shop. You can see one of them holding a gas grenade. They are trying to open the door enough to throw the grenade in. The video ends when the police spots the recorder.

And, well, there are the usual police brutality I have showed at least 15 videos about.

Look at these weirdo cops attacking people randomly in İzmir.

Beşiktaş is being held by protestors, the police pulled back.
Taksim was very calm but it's getting crowded again.

In case anyone is wondering about the scale of things.

-A football fan group named "Çarşı" has just "liberated" a power shovel-

Good god, that's hilarious. Construction Equipment of the Revolution!

Erdoğan will be visiting Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco at 3 June 10:30 while his country is burning down. Turkish Source

Right, "visiting". Here's hoping he buys his Saudi Arabian retirement palace and never comes back to Turkey.

More police brutality

I'm surprised the ones in the bus are just standing there. That many people could probably tip it over if they all started rocking back and forth.

I think the people in that bus were the arrested ones. I can see one of them trying to push the door or something.

BTW, Erdoğan is talking about his visit to other countries on live right now like nothing wrong is going on with Turkey at the moment.

Has the military done anything yet?

They've been supplying the protesters and generally declared solidarity with them.

Yeah. Erdoğan already threw lots of outspoken generals into prison and people are not expecting a military coup. Turkish military has conscription so the soldiers are more supportive than you might expect.

There have been solidarity rallys in several bigger german cities, like Cologne and Berlin.

Also Syria has called for Erdogan to resign for repressing protests, apparently completely unfamiliar with the concept of "hypocrisy"...

Assad is probably sitting in his Palace laughing his ass off. And possibly sending off messages along the line of "WHAT DID I TELL YOU? WHAT DID I FUCKING TELL YOU? MESS WITH ME AGAIN ASSHOLE." Turkey has been VERY anti-Assad, so it's more likely Irony, and the Turkish government ends up being a hypocrite.

Yeah, I was just going to tell about this but you guys beat me to it. I laughed really hard after I heard this. I say our government should listen to this higher paragon of democracy!

This revolution didn't start with anything else than the people itself. There were no political parties or foreign influences involved. People occupied the park, police responded brutally. People responded the same, police kept getting worse. Everyone started puking all the hate and anger that was building up for years. It seems we were just waiting for the cops to poke the dragon.

Keeping this short, because I'm going to school in half an hour. I didn't study for the exam today. And my head is hurting like my brain wants to set itself free from the restraints of my oppressive skull. Everyone is after freedom these days.

Edit: DİSK (Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey) and Eğitim-sen (Education and Science Workers' Union) have decided to drop the work for 2 days. Wednesday they will go on general strike. Full-scale strike is almost a certainty.

[olemars]

I guess I can scratch out "Sightseeing in Istanbul" from my vacation ideas 2013 list.

[Akura]

Good luck and stay safe. Especially since it seems police are attacking people at random and in their own homes.

[Sheb]

I'm not surprised by Assad, back then Qaddafi was declaring his support for the "British rebels", aka the rioters in London. He's basically trying to put up Turkey as hypocrite for supporting the Syrian rebels while repressing protesters.

Leandra, don't answer to this if you fear a derail, but about the PKK leader, don't you think some kind of amnesty will be needed if peace is to be negotiated? I can understand this being popular, but it's probably a good thing if it's part of a wider peace proposal.

[SethCreiyd]

People react to oppression with either courage or fear, and the bravery on display here is a sight to admire.

Keep safe, and thanks for keeping all of us posted.

[Leafsnail]

Çarşı sounds like the most awesome football fan club ever.  I kindof want to start supporting their team out of solidarity.

This is a really excellent aggregation of English and Turkish news though, thanks for putting it together.

[Max White]

You just know that in the future that will have so many fans. Grandparents will tell their children about the time the local team stole a digger and fucked the police, and it was awesome.

[Loud Whispers]

OH SHIT
AK-47 in COP car
Police planning on dressing up as rioters and shooting police
Or maybe rioters planting guns to pretend to be police masquerading as rioters shooting the police
Or maybe mossad imitating rioters...

[Nadaka]

http://defnesumanblogs.com/2013/06/01/what-is-happenning-in-istanbul/

yea I didn't know about this thread.

I got this from a facebook friend who knows a few people in turkey.

[XXSockXX]

I see a lot more pics and videos from twitter, tumblr etc showing up in german media. This is a good sign I think, and it shows how important it is to document and stream this.
They have reported the first "officially confirmed" death now, a 20 year old man was killed sunday evening in Istanbul, when a car drove into a protesting crowd.
There is a live stream of protests in Istanbul up again, don't know how long this will be up, seems to be news agency material. At least the police can't go in there, with the world watching.
Media consensus seems to be that it's a huge blow for Erdogan and his aspirations to change the constitution toward an authoritarian Putin-style presidency. The protests are generally seen as a democratic expression and a positive development toward a modern civil society (as opposed to the military coups of past decades). President Gül seems to try to play it more moderate, so even Erdogan's position within the AKP appears to be weakened.
International governments have condemned the police brutality, and - much more important - stock markets are falling, which should force Erdogan to compromise, because it hurts where the money is.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Erdogan is a fanatic, so he's not likely to compromise. If he were a rational actor things wouldn't have gotten to this point. I'll call it now, this is only going to end with him being ousted.

[10ebbor10]

Erdogan is a fanatic, so he's not likely to compromise. If he were a rational actor things wouldn't have gotten to this point. I'll call it now, this is only going to end with him being ousted.

I dunno, he seemed like a pretty decent guy just by running over the Wikipedia pages. Defending atheist rights, economic reforms, investing in education, attempted to solving the Cypriotic problems, ...

Difference between talking and acting, apparently.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

29 January 2004: Profiles of Courage Award from the American Jewish Committee, for promoting peace between cultures.[133]
18 April 2004: listed in Time magazine's "100 most influential people in the world" and was called a builder of bridges by the magazine.[134]
13 June 2004: Golden Plate award from the Academy of Achievement during the conference in Chicago.[135]
3 October 2004: German Quadriga prize for improving relationships between different cultures.[136]
1 December 2004: named European of the Year by the weekly European Voice, for having put Turkey on the path to reform.[137]
2 September 2005: Mediterranean Award for Institutions (Italian: Premio Mediterraneo Istituzioni). This was awarded by the Fondazione Mediterraneo.[138]
1 June 2006: Russian state medal from the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.[139]
8 August 2006: Caspian Energy Integration Award from the Caspian Integration Business Club.[140]
1 November 2006: Outstanding Service award from the Turkish humanitarian organization Red Crescent.[141]
2 February 2007: Dialogue Between Cultures Award from the President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev.[142]
12 March 2007: together with Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, the 2007 RUMI Peace and Dialogue award.[143]
15 April 2007: Crystal Hermes Award from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the opening of the Hannover Industrial Fair.[144]
14 June 2007: Turkish Leader of the Year Award from the mediagroup Imedya.[145]
11 July 2007: highest award of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Agricola Medal, in recognition of his contribution to agricultural and social development in Turkey.[146]
15 January 2008: together with Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, the Building Bridges Award from the AMSS(UK), for their efforts to unify communities separated by race, culture and religion, for promoting a climate of respect, and peaceful co-existence through launching the Alliance of Civilizations project.[147]
11 May 2009: Avicenna award from the Avicenna Foundation in Frankfurt, Germany.[148]
9 June 2009: guest of honor at the 20th Crans Montana Forum in Brussels and received the Prix de la Fondation, for democracy and freedom.[149]
25 June 2009: Key to the City of Tirana on the occasion of his state visit to Albania.[150]
26 October 2009: Nishan-e-Pakistan, the highest civilian award in Pakistan.[151]
29 December 2009: Award for Contribution to World Peace from the Turgut Özal Thought and Move Association.[152]
12 January 2010: King Faisal International Prize for "service to Islam" from the King Faisal Foundation.[153]
23 February 2010: Nodo Culture Award from the mayor of Seville for his efforts to launch the Alliance of Civilizations initiative.[154]
1 March 2010: United Nations–HABITAT award in memorial of Rafik Hariri. A seven member international jury unanimously found Erdoğan deserving the award because of his "excellent achievement and commendable conduct in the area of leadership, statesmanship and good governance. Erdoğan also initiated the first roundtable of mayors during the Istanbul conference, which led to a global, organized movement of mayors."[18]
29 April 2010: listed for the second time in Time magazine's "100 most influential people in the world".[155]
17 May 2010: Georgia's Order of Golden Fleece for his contribution to development of bilateral relations.[156]
27 May 2010: medal of honor from the Brazilian Federation of Industry for the State of São Paulo (FIESP) for his contributions to industry[157]
31 May 2010: World Health Organization 2010 World No Tobacco Award for "his dedicated leadership on tobacco control in Turkey."[158]
29 June 2010: 2010 World Family Award from the World Family Organization which operates under the umbrella of the United Nations.[159]
4 November 2010: Golden Medal of Independence, an award conferred upon Kosovo citizens and foreigners that have contributed to the independence of Kosovo.[160]
25 November 2010: "Leader of the Year" award presented by the Union of Arab Banks in Lebanon.[161]
29 November 2010: guest of honor at the 3rd EU-Africa Summit in Libya and Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights.[162]
11 January 2011: "Outstanding Personality in the Islamic World Award" of the Sheikh Fahad al-Ahmad International Award for Charity in Kuwait.[162]
2 February 2011: Kyrgyzstan's Danaker Order in Bishkek.[163]
25 October 2011: Palestinian International Award for Excellence and Creativity (PIA) 2011 for his support to the Palestinian people and cause.[164]
21 January 2012: ’Gold Statue 2012 Special Award’ by the Polish Business Center Club (BCC), which is considered the most prestigious award in Poland. Erdoğan was awarded for his systematic effort to clear barriers on the way to economic growth, striving to build democracy and free market relations[165]

If I'd have to make a guess, I'd say he's megalomaniacal. Or maniacal.

People like this tend to have more ambition, more sympathy, and are better in inspiring people. However when things go against them, well...