On the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the Gezi uprising, people in Istanbul commemorated the dead of the protests and reiterated their willingness to continue the resistance against the exploitative system in Turkey.
A rally was held in Istanbul on Monday on the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the Gezi protests. The participants gathered with images of the dead of Gezi in the Mis Sokak, a side street of the Istiklal Avenue in the centre of the metropolis on the Bosporus, as the Gezi Park had already been sealed off by the police the day before. Also yesterday, the riot police marched again with a massive contingent and took position with several water cannons at the street entrances.
The rally, promoted by the umbrella organization "Taksim Solidarity" - which played a leading role during the protests seven years ago - began with the reading of the names of the civilians who died in the Gezi uprising: Berkin Elvan, Ethem Sarısülük, Abdullah Cömert, Ali İsmail Korkmaz, Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, Medeni Yıldırım, Hasan Ferit Gedik and Ahmet Atakan. After each naming, the crowd shouted "is alive", followed by the slogan "Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance".
After a minute's silence in memory of the dead, lawyer Can Atalay read out a statement on behalf of the Taksim Solidarity, in which he first recalled that seven years ago, millions of people took to the streets in nearly 80 provinces of the country "to defend the cities, nature, the diligence of the workers and fraternity and to achieve equality, freedom and justice”.
Atalay pointed out that the system in Turkey lives from exploitation and consumption is an inexhaustible source of this. He continued: “Not only is nature is "replaced" by concrete, but man himself is "consumed". Gezi, on the other hand, was an outcry of the masses against any kind of exploitation and rejoiced with the cry "Enough is enough. Today, too, several people are willing to continue the resistance against this system.”
Gezi protests
The Gezi protests began in late May 2013, initially directed against a controversial construction project in Gezi Park, but then expanded into nationwide demonstrations against the Islamist ruling party AKP. The then Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had the Gezi protests bloodily suppressed by the police. Eight demonstrators were killed, more than 8,000 people injured, 43 of them seriously.
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