Ron Paul Institute: Turkey's Erdogan Gets Taste of His Own Medicine? (Gezi Park triggered)

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saturday june 1, 2013

After nearly a week of increasing public protests in Turkey, ostensibly over government plans to turn a last bit of green space in Istanbul into another shopping mall, matters became far more serious on Friday. Riot police descended on the protestors with various forms of tear gas (and possibly worse chemical and biological agents -- raw sewage?) and water cannon, blasting everyone and everything in sight including non-participants. When they caught protestors, they beat them violently and brutally, as can be seen in this video. Photographs show that police fired tear gas into crowded underground metro stations, leading to panic and worse. Istanbul looks like a war zone.

Today indications are that protests have only increased in number and fury in response to the violence with which they were met yesterday.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under increased criticism at home over his enthusiastic support for those fighting to overthrow the government in neighboring Syria. Turkish government support for the rebels came early and has included providing safe havens for the Islamist insurgents and safe passage into Syria from Libya, Yemen, and other countries of the insurgents' origin.

Erdogan's stated policy of "zero problems with neighbors" has been turned on its head by his support for the rebels fighting next door. Public dissatisfaction with the Turkish government's policy of encouraging an Islamist insurgency next door has steadily increased.

more, and internal links here: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archive...s-erdogan-gets-taste-of-his-own-medicine.aspx

 

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this was on twitter tonight:

to get a general idea go to this twitter stream and in the upper left there is a 'top photos' series. Click on one and it will become a slide show. Warning, some are graphic, in terms of injury/death. https://twitter.com/search?q=#gezi&src=typd (Note ONE of the bridge photos is fake,the one with a bunch of blue people together that was from a marathon earlier in the year)