11 Feb 2014 | News and features, Turkey
This is the third part of a series of conversations with Turkish playwright and author Meltem Arikan about her play Mi Minor and her experiences during the Gezi Park demonstrations.
Julian Farrington, head of arts programmes at Index on Censorship spoke to Arikan about how this government-orchestrated terror campaign was to change her life.
On 2 June Arikan – with her friends Pinar Ogun, Memet Ali Alabora and Melin Edomwonyi — struggled through the massive crowds of demonstrators on the streets of Istanbul, reaching her home around two in the afternoon. The peaceful Gezi Park demonstrations had turned violent.
There had been clashes between the protesters and the police during the night. The previous day they had been among a group of artists who they had gathered together to broadcast a message to the governor from Taksim Square. They called for him to end the excessive police response and use of tear gas on peaceful protesters.
On the evening of 2 June, the Turkish authorities would start naming and blaming in an attempt to explain this eruption of anti-government protest. As the finger pointing evolved into a hate campaign, Arikan and the artistic team behind her play Mi Minor were among those targeted.
Index: How long after the play finished did the Gezi Park protests start?
Arikan: Mi Minor was staged in Istanbul from 1 December 2012 to 14 April 2013. The play was performed 23 times, more than 10,000 people attended. Gezi Park protests started on 27 May.
Index: What was the reaction to the play?
Arikan: Mainstream media showed great interest in Mi Minor. Before and during the performances Memet Ali Alabora, director and lead actor, and Pinar Ogun, the lead actress, were interviewed and hosted by nearly all major TV channels, newspapers and magazines. After only 5 performances, Mi Minor was named Radikal Newspaper’s Best Play of the Year by readers.
At first the audience was not interacting much with the play. The first remarkable reaction was a woman throwing her shoe at the Pinima president. However, when young people started joining and interacting with the play, the perception of the overall audience and their involvement changed. When young people figured out that there was more than one game to be played in our play, they started responding to Mi Minor in such smart, humorous and joyful ways.
We also had great responses on social media all around Turkey as well as other countries — Netherlands, France, USA, Canada, Egypt, Australia and more. The play became a trending topic four times during the performances in Turkey.
In time, we started to have fans who would come to the play or join online every week and plan their own little games. For example one of the digital actors abroad came up with the idea of Pinileaks on the internet during each performance about the Pinima president. A group of online audience members, who were following the play online, got organised and came to Istanbul. There were also friends who got very excited about the play and came from abroad to see it. The play had the Marmite effect: Some loved it. some hated it. There have been many reviews about the play by Turkish and international critics, including Liberté info, Paulanow and Archetypeinaction.
Index: Were there any other awards or plaudits?
Arikan: Students of Galatasaray University awarded Memet Ali Alabora as best actor. Pinar Ogun was nominated for best actress. I was nominated for the best playwright in the Lions Theatre Awards. The play was named the Best Play of the Year by the Karvak Awards, which we refused to receive as I mentioned in the previous article.
Index: Did the government make any comments or have any reaction to it?
Arikan: There weren’t any comments or reactions from the government during the period when the play was being performed.
Index: I know you were uneasy about how it might be received by authorities. How did you feel it went?
Arikan: We took a great deal of care to make sure that our made-up country Pinima didn’t relate to any specific government, including Turkey. I observed that some of the audience felt uncomfortable when the Pianist was taking their pictures or interviewing them on Ustream. I believe this is mostly because people were afraid to be seen as opposing power, even though Pinima was a fictional country. After each performance many people said to us that we were very brave and asked us to be careful.
Index: So now, let’s go to the moment on June 2 when you got back to your house after the artists made the statement condemning police violence. What was your mood when you closed your front door?
Arikan: We were tired, angry and confused when we got home. I can say that we got more worried as the events got more violent. It was so painful to see young people lose their lives knowing it all started off to protect trees. We were trying to keep our nerves together as we followed the events on Twitter.
Index: When was the first time you heard that you and your friends were being named as the architects of the Gezi Park uprising?
Arikan: On 1 June, the first accusation was made against my close friend and the director of Mi Minor, Memet Ali Alabora, by members of the ruling party, claiming that Gezi protests were attempts to establish the grounds for a coup and his tweet, which would become so famous, was shown as evidence:
“It’s not just a matter of Gezi Park, haven’t you realised yet? Come join. #resistgezipark”
It was shocking to see how politicians could show such a simple tweet as an evidence for such a huge claim. All Memet Ali did was to attend the protests during the first three days and use twitter to express himself. It was hard to believe how he was being singled out and targeted.
As I said in the previous article, I tried to explain what happened in the first three days of Gezi Park protests. From the second night onwards, the protest that started about trees attracted thousands of people who were coming to the park to give voice to a whole range of issues that they were concerned about. There were political activists, environmentalists; even Turkish Airlines staff, who were out on strike at the time joined the demonstrations. And on 30 May the day Memet Ali sent his tweet, there were people holding up banners about protecting the environment, the demolition of the Emek Theatre, destruction of forests and rivers and government interference in personal lifestyles. Memet Ali’s intention was to report what he saw happening, as he stated in his press conference after the accusations of Yeni Şafak Newspaper:
“I went to Gezi Park on 28 May to protect the trees and the culture of Istanbul. After continuous police violence, the protest turned against the force used to suppress freedom of expression. People who gathered there started to express themselves on matters they were not able to express before. This was also the case for me. For me, as well as Gezi Park, I wanted to express my concerns about a whole range of issues I saw happening in the city: the demolition of Emek Theatre, the change in Istanbul City Theatre’s regulation, State Theatres that were being closed down, the green fields being destroyed on the Asian side of Istanbul, the old central station to be made a commercial building. I meant all these when I tweeted ‘it’s not just a matter of Gezi Park’.”
After 1 June, a campaign was launched by government officials, politicians, pro-government media and their social media supporters claiming that the Gezi Park protests were an international conspiracy, with links to business, arts and NGOs. Businessmen, artists, executives of many NGOs, sportsmen, journalists and many others started to be targeted as part of this conspiracy. First Memet Ali, then Mi Minor and all related to the play, were one of the main focuses of this campaign.
Memet Ali attended a news programme a couple of days later; during the programme President of AKP (Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party) Istanbul Party Organization almost threatened him via twitter:
“Memet Ali and his allies/friends/ will be “overturned” [referring Memet Ali’s surname “Alabora” as it literally means “overturn”], and our brotherhood will win”
On 10 June, the pro-government newspaper Yeni Şafak came out with the headline, “What A Coincidence”, accusing Mi Minor as being the rehearsal for the protests, six months in advance. The subheadline said that “New information has come to light to show that the Gezi Park protests were an attempted civil coup” and continued claiming that “the protests were rehearsed months before in the play called ‘Mi Minor’ staged in Istanbul”.
After Yeni Şafak’s headline, the mayor of Ankara, started to make programmes on TV specifically about Mi Minor, also mentioning my name. A news channel called A Haber ran a story about the graphic designer of the play, accusing her of being one of the masterminds of the social media behind the protests. They announced her full name and twitter account, giving false reports on her. She later lost her job as a consequence.
Index: The newspaper was making a direct connection between your play Mi Minor and the demonstrations. How did they justify, support this claim?
Arikan: As I mentioned before, a smear campaign had already been launched. Any news by pro-government media were built on the premise that Gezi Park protests didn’t start as protection of trees but as an international conspiracy by the secret powers and the interest lobby against the emergence of a new Turkey.
This introduction to the article in the pro-government paper Yeni Şafak’s is an example of this conviction:
“The Gezi Park protests that started off with claims about cutting trees and which suddenly grew into a campaign calling for the government to resign, with false news on social media has come into its 14th day. New information on events has revealed they were an attempt to develop into an international operation with the support of the interest lobby, and throws a new light on the supposed innocence of the Gezi Park protests. There have been precise rehearsals of the Gezi events in the play ‘Mi Minor’ which was staged between 1st of December 2012 – 14th of April 2013.”
By projecting Memet Ali as someone “who has drawn attention with his provocative public tweets ever since the first day of the protests”, the newspaper tried to link his popular tweet with the play. In Mi Minor we used gourds in our fictional country Pinima, as a nonsensical export which was supposed to drive the economy. We were very cautious when choosing the symbols used in the play in order to create a unique country. Referring to the AKP’s use of a light bulb as their party symbol, the newspaper claimed that we were “targeting AK Party by using symbols that resemble the AKP symbol”. They presented the unique theatre style of Mi Minor as training for young people, teaching, “how people should revolt and how they can organise their revolution on social media”.
For the newspaper, Memet Ali’s participation in the protests, the gourds, the way social media was used in both the play and the protests, the portrayal of a dictator president in the play and the opportunity that the play gave for the audience to oppose to the President was enough to justify its attack.
“The play “Mi Minor” proves that the Gezi Park protests, which was turned into a campaign to overthrow the government, were being staged on another medium before the actual protests started.”
Index: They claimed that you were part of a conspiracy, funded by foreign governments – can you tell us more about this?
Arikan: Once the premise of the conspiracy was established, any figure who somehow participated in the protests would always be linked to it, and thus to the foreign governments. On one of his programs the mayor of Ankara claimed, without proof, that Mi Minor was funded from abroad.
Ten days after their news on Mi Minor, Yeni Şafak featured another story, presenting Memet Ali’s holiday visits to the Red Sea and London as if they were preparations for Gezi protests. On various TV programs, websites and online forums Mi Minor or my name were being linked to secret international powers. Presentations were made to district organisations of the AK ruling party, explaining how Mi Minor was part of the international conspiracy.
There were so many groundless accusations that it is impossible to remember them all.
Index: You decided to lie low and stay in the house. What was it like in the house? Who was there? What was the atmosphere?
Arikan: Even now, I don’t want to remember what I went through during those days. We were extremely distressed. We were receiving hundreds of threats and accusations almost every minute via social media. We found it really difficult to believe what we were reading when we saw the news about Mi Minor. Even though most of the media covered Memet Ali’s press conference, it didn’t stop the accusations. The accusations were then carried on to TV. Mi Minor was being discussed on various TV channels at least twice a week. Pinar and I started to use anti-depressant pills during this period because it was impossible to understand and cope with what was going on. I wasn’t just worried for myself but also for the people I love.
Index: The protests continued until long after you closed your front door. Did the police make any arrests in the days following the protests? Given what was being written about you, did you expect they would arrest you?
Arikan: There were ongoing arrests at the time. We were prepared for every possibility. We knew it was also possible we would be arrested. It was nerve wracking to live with such uncertainty. There were continuous threats and accusations. All this was happening because I created a play and attended a peaceful protest to protect trees.
Sadly, this was just a beginning for us. While the demonstrations were happening at Taksim and Gezi Park, the prime minister held several rallies. During his speeches at two consecutive rallies in Ankara and Istanbul, he read Memet Ali’s tweet to his supporters and made the crowd boo Memet Ali. Pinar and I were watching the prime minister’s speech live on TV. Pinar was shaking with fear and shock, she was repeatedly asking “why?” We were not sleeping. We were not talking with anyone outside the house or on the phone.
Several complaints were submitted to the prosecutors about Memet Ali. They sued him for encouraging a crime showing his tweet as evidence. Prosecutors eventually dropped all charges, though the last one was only dropped in January 2014.
It wasn’t the arrests we were afraid of. We feared for our lives. The days were hard to follow. We lost track of time. We were numb, timeless, sleepless and speechless. I don’t like to remember those days we had to spend at home.
Index: After a while of this attack on Memet Ali and others, the mayor of Ankara launched his personal campaign against you. Why do you think he got so heated? Was there a particular political motive for his attacks?
Arikan: My nervous system had already been broken by the time I saw that one of the many programs on Mi Minor was now focusing on me. They were showing an edited version of one of my speeches that I made six years ago about secularism. It was edited in such a way that I came across as an anti-Muslim agitator. What I found so brutal about this was the fact that they were using religion to provoke people against me. Religion has always been one of the most sensitive subjects in Turkey. What upset me most was the fear I witnessed in my son’s eyes and the anxiety that my partner was living through.
I find it dreadful for a politician to be able to play with people’s lives so easily. I don’t know what his political motive was. But I do know very well that these motivations do not include any humanitarian sensibility or responsibility. In responses to all these accusations, I wrote a confession for my column in Kazete, which was subsequently shared on many websites and through social media.
“I’M GUILTY I CONFESS
I’m guilty; as a woman writer, for years I’ve been rejecting the male dominated system and for the last couple of years I’ve been trying to understand and express what’s been happening during the transition period from the analogue world to the digital world.
I confess; two and a half years ago, using my intellect and my imagination, I wrote a play called “Mi Minor”. Our play was performed 23 times in 3 different venues with the permission of Governorship of Istanbul for each venue. My imagination fails me when I try to understand those who accuse us of rehearsing the Gezi Park events before it has started, provoking all that is currently happening in our country; linking us to various foreign organizations and part of an fantastical conspiracy theory relating to all these lies – even though they haven’t seen our play.
I’m guilty; I know that for thousands of years the culture of fear has been creating ‘the other’ through race and religious differences and has been making up rational reasons for wars by imposing hate and violence. I say ENOUGH to the analogue world order imposed by the male dominated system based on culture of fear, which is the one and only common culture of all societies in the world and which has been forced upon all societies, for thousands of years.
I confess; culture shall not be attributed to any society or any race. Culture is formed through the results of women and men’s existence(s) affecting each other and their interactions with nature. When defining cultural differences, the analogue world order has always disregarded the differences between men and women’s lives, which forms the foundation of all cultures. It’s women and men that create cultures and civilizations. It is a big mistake to restrict the parameters of cultural formation just with race, religion, geography and traditions, seperated from the existence of women and men.
I believe the new digital order will be constructed by accepting that societies are formed by women and men without prioritising race, religion, language and sexual differences.
I’m guilty; I believe in freedom of thought and freedom of expression by getting away from the pressures of all ideologies, political statements, military or civilian coups.
I confess; I want to think and live freely by moving away from the thought patterns that have been imposed by the patriarchal system for thousands of years.
I’m guilty; I know that the only reason of running away from reality, deflecting reality, creating ‘the other’ is fear.
I confess; I will not be frightened and to become ‘the other’.”
Index: Can you describe the nature of the campaign and how it was manipulating the public?
Arikan: On YouTube everyday different users uploaded the video made about me, which was presented by the mayor of Ankara on his son’s TV channel. Discussions and comments about me started to be made on digital forums and blogs during his campaign, referencing the banning of my book in 2004. I received hundreds of rape and life threatening emails and tweets as a result of this campaign.
Index: At what point did you start getting frightened for your safety?
Arikan: I started to get really angry because — as a woman writer supporting secularism — I have been pointed to as a threat to Islamic faith and destructor of the Turkish family order, over and over on TV and social media. Such accusations against any woman, is a threat on her life. However, I was never frightened for losing my own life, I still stand for everything I said, my fear was firstly for the security of my son and the people I love.
On 24 June newspapers carried very frightening news. A Islamist journalist claimed that he had heard that there was a contract out to kill Memet Ali. He didn’t mention any names or any organisations. This was when we really started to worry about our lives.
Index: From 1 June until the time you left the country, you did not feel safe to go out and for the most part, friends brought food and things you needed. But you did go out once. What happened?
Arikan: Pinar and I had to go to the bank one day, since the bank is very close to where we live, we didn’t see any harm in driving there. But when we came back out from the bank we found the words “YOU ARE DEAD” written on the car. This of course upset us all very much. And just a few days after, I saw that mayor of Ankara’s son was tweeting about me for hours.
The selected sentences he chose to tweet about were all excerpts from my research publication called ‘The Body Knows’. He was clearly provoking people against me with false accusations and manipulating what I had written. Those tweets were the last straw.
I realised that we were surrounded, imprisoned in our own home and prevented from expressing ourselves freely.
I decided to leave to build a new life with my son, leaving everything else behind in order to express my thoughts freely.
This article was posted on February 11 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
7 Feb 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Russia
(Image: Gonçalo Silva/Demotix)
The Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremony is taking place today, and organisers have declared that a record 65 world leaders are attending. But numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. As it turns out, some of the biggest names in global politics will not be in the stands cheer on their athletes as the games are officially kick off. Indeed, quite a few won’t be taking the trip to Sochi at all. Barack Obama is sending a delegation including openly gay figure skater Brian Boitano in his place, and Angela Merkel, David Cameron and Francois Hollande are also staying away.
But while the International Olympic Committee’s Thomas Bach was less than impressed by the apparent boycott, labelling it an “ostentatious gesture” that “costs nothing but makes international headlines”, the absence of the big guns does give the lesser-known world leaders a chance to shine. Not all guests have been confirmed, but we’ve got the low-down on some of the the leaders the cameras might pan to during today’s festivities, or who could be spotted in the slopes over the coming weeks.
Alexander Lukashenko
(Image: Ivan Uralsky/Demotix)
Putin’s long time colleague and fellow ice hockey enthusiast surely wouldn’t miss the Winter Olympics for the world. The Belarusian president is known as “the last dictator in Europe”, his near 20 years in power having passed without a single free and fair election. Under his leadership, peaceful protests have been violently dispersed, and civil society activists and political opposition — including rival candidates from the 2010 presidential elections — have been jailed. A brand new report from Index also concludes that: “Belarus continues to have one of the most restrictive and hostile media environments in Europe.”
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
(Image: Philip Janek / Demotix)
The Turkish president made global headlines last summer, over his regime’s violent crackdown on the peaceful Gezi park demonstrations. Rather than accepting the protests were a manifestation of genuine grievances by his people, he blamed “foreign hands” and their “domestic collaborators” like many a less-than-democratic leader before him. His government was recently implicated in a big corruption scandal, and only yesterday, parliament approved controversial amendments to the country’s internet law. The new law, opposed by civil society, the opposition and international organisations alike, gives the government wide-reaching powers over the internet, effectively allowing them to block websites without court rulings, and gives them access to user data.
Viktor Yanukovych
(Image: Oleksandr Nazarov/Demotix)
The Ukrainian president’s failure to sign a treaty securing closer ties with the EU in November, sparked the country’s ongoing Euromaidan protests. The authorities response was heavy handed — police clashed with demonstrators and journalist were targeted, leading to international condemnation. They authorities even briefly implemented a highly repressive new law, among other things allowing security services to monitor the internet, and defining NGOs receiving funding from abroad as “foreign agents”. The law was, however, scrapped only days later following outrage from civil society. Meanwhile,Ukraine’s Prime Minister and government also stepped down, while Yanukovych took four days off ill. He’s back in the office now — just in time head to Sochi for a much-hyped meeting with Putin.
Nursultan Nazarbayev
(Image: Vladimir Tretyakov/Demotix)
Kazakhstan’s president has been in power since 1991, and during that time, allegations of human rights abuses, including attacks on demonstrators and independent media, as well as widespread corruption have been regularly levelled at him. In 2012, following clashed between the police and striking workers, the president, who already effectively controls the legislature and the judiciary, further extended his emergency powers. But Putin wouldn’t even be his only high-flying friend. In September, Kanye West performed at his grandson’s wedding. The reported price tag? $3 million. Did I mention the accusations of corruption? Meanwhile, former British prime minister Tony Blair spent two years advising Nazarbayev and his government on democracy and good governance — a deal which “produced no change for the better or advance of democratic rights in the authoritarian nation”.
Emomali Rahmon
(Image: Riccardo Valsecchi/Demotix)
He has been the head of the government of Tajikistan since 1992, and was in power during the country’s civil war, where 100,000 people lost their lives. Allegations of human rights abuses, including torture by security forces and arbitrary arrests, are widespread. Much of the media is state-controlled, and independent journalists face violence and intimidation. “Publicly insulting the president” can see you jailed for as long as five years. Recently, a prominent member of the opposition, Zaid Saidov, was sentenced to 26 years in prison following what has been described as a “politically motivated trial”. In Sochi, he is set to meet with not only Putin, but also Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
This article was posted on February 7 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
29 Jan 2014 | Digital Freedom, Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Philip Janek / Demotix)
A few weeks ago, internet privacy activists in Turkey began expressing alarm over newly proposed amendments to the law already governing the country’s internet activity.
If implemented, the changes would serve to increase the government’s already strong hold over the internet. Taking to social media and posting critical declarations on their websites, opponents of the law braced themselves for another debate over censorship in Turkey. Protests held on 18 January drew the attention of the riot police, who responded with pepper spray and water cannons. Despite this, some freedom of speech activists insist that the most effective resistance to censorship will be promoting internet security.
Law number 5651 was passed in 2007 and has since regulated freedom of expression on the internet in Turkey by censoring thousands of websites, including a two-year ban on YouTube. There has even been a European Court of Human Rights ruling against it. Opponents of the new, amended, bill have criticised its ability to collect and store internet users’ personal data and its increased censorship of websites deemed offensive. Others have cited its potential to slow down internet connections and damage Turkey’s beleaguered economy. The bill has already been redrafted this month, with a recent version extending the time period during which the Directorate of Telecommunication (TİB) would decide on banning websites from four to twenty-four hours. However, the previous time limit remains in “emergency” cases. This could also potentially change, as the bill will be redrafted again before it’s voted upon. While it is unclear when the vote will take place, it is expected soon.
The bill’s nebulous drafting process has prompted uproar among Turkey’s internet activists. Zeynep Karahan Uslu, the member of parliament who presented the draft bill, first tweeted last month that amendments were being prepared. Members of the Pirate Party of Turkey reacted by starting a public Google doc and encouraging their followers on Twitter and Facebook to contribute information about the law. At the beginning of this month, the Pirates posted a twelve-page declaration on their website, and news of the amendments spread through social media. Serhat Koç, a telecommunications lawyer and spokesperson for the Pirate Party, says people outside the party began editing and tweeting the declaration. Eventually, an aide for the recently formed People’s Democratic Party (HDP) approached Koç to ask if he would draft an opposing bill for their party. Koç remains pessimistic about what efforts to oppose the amendments can achieve. “I think nobody can change that draft bill,” he said.
Lawmakers and supporters of the new bill have argued that it serves to protect internet users’ privacy with regulations safeguarding their reputations against obscenity or defamation. But opponents have drawn attention to the dangers posed by the amendment’s blocking of URLs. While lawmakers have promoted this measure by saying URLs can be banned more selectively, critics argue the extent of censorship will be less visible to internet users. İsmail Alpen, a founder of the online campaign Sansürü Durdur, says that while court orders were previously displayed on blocked websites, “in the new system you won’t be able to see any warning,” leaving visitors to speculate about why they cannot access a website. “People won’t be notified about what has been censored,” Alpen said.
Other opponents of the bill see the proposed URL-based banning as means for legalising increased data collection. Ahmet Sabancı, a member of the Alternative Informatics Association, explains that blocking URLs instead of entire websites requires TİB to use deep package inspection. “URL-based page blocking forces ISPs to keep all logs for two years, putting all of our information into their hands,” he said. But according to Sabancı, most internet users aren’t concerned about data retention: “They think they can change their domain name server (DNS) numbers and surpass most censorship.” A few weeks ago, the Alternative Informatics Association launched the website kem gözlere şiş, which features guides explaining how to use tools for internet anonymity or circumventing censorship, like Tor, VPNs or encryption. Sabancı said most feedback he’s received since the site’s launch has been from political activists, and that most are excited about Tor because it’s the easiest to use.
In 2013, average user numbers of the Tor browser in Turkey remained low, at just a few thousand a month, according to statistics published on the anonymity network’s website. But if the amendments to law 5651 are passed, the potential increase in website censorship could see a surge in Tor and VPN use. “In general, as soon as a government starts talking about censorship, the populace responds by finding ways to circumvent the censorship,” Tor executive director Andrew Lewman wrote in an email.
Koç and other Pirate Party members are developing projects for secure communication, including a local mesh network and a whistleblowing platform for journalists. Currently, whistleblowers barely ever leak to journalists because anonymity software is not widely used, Koç says. Both Koç and Sabancı say many internet users’ disinterest in government surveillance has made it difficult to raise awareness about the new amendments to 5651 and the likely effects on internet censorship and data collection. But interest in anonymity has been growing since last year’s protests in Gezi Park were met with police brutality, Koç says.
Recently, more people have been contacting both Koç and Sabancı through social media to seek advice on using the internet anonymously. At a recent workshop held by Pirate Party members, on instruction on internet security, drew diverse visitors. “There were activists from the Turkish Green Party, citizen journalists, people who used Ustream in Gezi Park, some leftists associations. Censorship is not the thing for lots of people, but anonymity is necessary,” Koç said. “They want to be anonymous.”
This article was posted on 29 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
22 Jan 2014 | News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture, Turkey
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Istanbul on 1 June in the capital’s Taksim Square during demonstrations over plans to turn Gezi Park into a shopping mall. (Photo: Akin Aydinli / Demotix)
Author and playwright Meltem Arikan was amongst a small group of people who was accused by senior Turkish politicians and government sponsored media of being the architects of the May-June 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations. This was no idle threat, but a TV, newspaper and Twitter campaign designed to convince the Turkish people that the accused were responsible for the largest anti-government protest ever witnessed in Turkey. Forced to leave Turkey, she, and those closest to her, have come to live in UK and only now is she beginning to feel safe enough to tell her story.
What follows is Arikan’s personal account of the events.
For me everything starts on 27 May 2013.
Together with Memet Ali Alabora the director of my play Mi Minor, Pinar Ogun the lead actress and the play’s graphic designer Melin Edomwonyi, I went to KARVAK Awards Ceremony to receive our award for Best Play 2013 given by the Black Sea education, culture and environment protection foundation. As we made our way there, it didn’t seem possible that our lives were about to change completely. The ceremony started and the first award to be announced was a lifetime achievement award for the governor of Istanbul. The moment we heard this we stood up and left the venue, refusing to receive our award.
In Turkey, the governor is the highest state representative in the city, and has responsibility for and control over the police. At the time in Istanbul the frequent and excessive use of tear gas and heavy-handed police tactics to even the smallest gatherings — especially around Taksim — were causing real concern for us and many people. For example on 7 April, a peaceful demonstration of artists and cinema goers — including Greek film director Costa-Gavras — against the demolition of the Emek Theatre was dispersed with water cannons and tear gas.
We could not have accepted an award from an organisation that honoured the governor after all that was happening in the heart of our city.
We went straight home and read on Twitter that the trees at the Gezi Park, the only park in the area of the city called Taksim, were being destroyed to make way for a shopping mall. We started tweeting to make people aware of what was going on, that the trees needed protection. A small group of around 50 people went to the park to keep watch over the trees and stop them from being uprooted in the middle of the night. When the workmen drove into the park during the night ready to destroy the trees, the protesters asked if they had an official permit. They had no papers, so the workmen left the park. I followed everything on Twitter, retweeting the tweets and pictures that were coming out of the park. Looking at those pictures I was worried that, as with so many demonstrations, only a handful of people would turn up. So I kept retweeting moment by moment what was happening there all night.
Next Morning – 28 May
The digger came back in the morning at 8 am. By then there were 200 people in the park and, because of the growing numbers, the riot police used pepper spray and tear gas to clear it. At noon, pictures from Gezi Park were being shared on Twitter again, but this time they showed riot police using tear gas against peaceful protestors. The picture of the pepper-gassed woman in a red dress, that would later become an icon, was taken during this first police attack.
The attack had triggered more people to come to the park. We decided to join the protesters, to give our support to the trees and say “enough!” to the crazy number of shopping malls, which are poisoning our cities.
After the pepper gas attack the works in the park were restarted. This time the Istanbul MP, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, who is also a screenwriter and film director, stood with his arms wide open in front of a digger and asked for their permit. This stalled the destruction for the time being and the workmen left.
When we got to the park we could still smell the gas even though it was hours after the attack. Despite the stench, the joy and determination of the young protesters remained. By sunset nearly a thousand people had gathered. There were tents everywhere. It was clear that people living around Gezi Park supported the protests and they, too, wanted to save the trees, the treasured heart and lungs of Taksim Square. People were treating the damaged trees, and planting saplings in the holes left by the diggers. Women, men, strangers to one another, straight, gay, transsexual, young, old, little kids with their parents came together for the sake of the trees. Regardless of their differences they shared their feelings with one another. A table became a simple stage for people to speak from, prejudice gave way to the attempt to understand each other, music and dance took over from frustration. We wrote our thoughts on pieces of paper and hung them on the branches of the trees. Perhaps, in our country, where everyone had become “the other” to one another, for the first time, in that park, no one was “the other” anymore.
As the writer of the novel Hope is a Curse, it was wonderful for me to feel hope for the first time in years. Hope that, helped by new ways to exchange and share information, women and men can come together to lay claim to public space and freedom of speech, leaving the barriers of race, religion, sexual choices, language, ethnic roots and ideologies behind. Although we only planned to go to the park for an hour, after feeling the atmosphere there, I couldn’t leave. We all tweeted to spread the word that night. We chanted, danced, protested. It was as if something I had written years ago, was actually beginning to happen in front of me…
“Women!
We do not have to surrender to the beliefs that are imposed upon us.
The time has come for us to reclaim our stolen spirit.
We can sing the song of another culture without knowing its language.
Without knowing the steps, we can keep up with the rhythm.
The time has come for us to tune in to the music and the rhythm within ourselves.
Patriarchy will be scared, Patriarchy will resist. Patriarchy will accuse…
The time has come for us to reclaim our stolen spirit…
We will cover our ears and will burst out laughing at the accusations,
Women will dance and sing songs and laugh aloud.
In spite of everything, we will rise up in protest, propelled by our irrepressible laughter.
The new digital world will be shaped WITH women, not IN SPITE OF us”
29 May
The next day Prime Minister Recep Erdogan gave a speech and said that they will build a shopping mall no matter what the people say. After the prime minister’s speech more people came to Gezi Park.
I was there around 4 pm. This time there were thousands of people present, including supporter groups, political activists, environmentalists and even Turkish Airlines staff who were out on strike. People were coming to the park to give voice to the issues they were concerned about as well as to protect the trees.
It was like a festival. Even though it was much more crowded than the previous night, the atmosphere generated by such a large and diverse group of people was absolutely amazing. Could things change for real? This time, could we change things by singing songs, by dancing, by freely expressing ourselves all together? Could we actually protect this precious corner of nature from mad-made destruction? The leader of the opposition party visited the park that night. He promised to have two MPs stay there at all times. I left the park after midnight.
30 May
In the morning we heard that, at dawn around 5 am, the police had attacked people and the tents had been set on fire.
I was following everything on Twitter. Again, police had surrounded the park. Again, the Istanbul MP, Sırrı Süreyya, went to the park and again he stood up against the digger to stop the demolition. Again the police left the park. Once more, the protestors occupied the park. The tree watch went on.
Pinar and I didn’t get to the park until that night, because we had been in the studio all day shooting our TV programme Witch’s Cauldron. The early morning police raid had prompted crowds of people to come to the park. By the time we got there, there were more than 10,000 people gathered.
Some young people were tying pieces of colourful cloth to the branches of the trees to make wish trees just like in the old Shaman tradition. I was very moved to see young people picking up on this old tradition. More young trees were planted, more people were trying to heal the wounded trees. People were holding up banners and they were not just about Gezi Park. There were a lot of different issues addressed: protecting the environment, the demolition of the Emek Theatre, recent bombing and deaths in Antakya.
Speeches were made, poems were read and songs were sung on the small stage in the middle of the park. Yet again we chanted and danced until dawn.
31 May
We saw the riot police getting ready just as we were heading out of the square at 4 am. There were two MPs on duty from opposition party. We spoke to them. They said they could do nothing to stop the police attack.
As the sun rose, pressure in the park was rising. Protesters who were already awake warned those still sleeping in tents.
At 4:30 am, as we were on our way to a café down the road, the riot police moved in. At this point there were about 3,000 people in the park. Police used massive quantities of gas against the peaceful protestors. Trying to escape the storm of tear gas people got trapped on an old stone staircase in the park, which collapsed crushing dozens of protestors. Many people were badly affected by the excessive amount of gas, and many others were injured by tear gas capsules thrown directly at them.
It was, and still is, very difficult for me to tell the story of what happened that morning. Inside a café, on the first floor, even though the doors were shut, none of us was able to breathe without choking. I couldn’t make sense of the scene I was witnessing. What was this place? Where was I? What had happened to the songs, tents, banners and dances? The hope I had seen in the eyes of the young people, the wish notes on the trees, the voices of people united? What had triggered the violence? What had happened to turn all this into a war zone?
By 7 am Gezi Park was empty; everybody had fled. The police closed the park. Small numbers of people started to regroup in neighbourhoods around Taksim. We walked to Cihangir Street nearby. Sitting in a café it was hard to breathe and hard to believe how we had been abused. During the gas attack we had been separated from our friends, and now we were trying to get news about them. Had they been injured, arrested? Everyone was following the Twitter feeds, reading them out loud so that all of us could hear as reports coming out of Taksim Square told of the growing number of injured. The roads were closed, the police were everywhere and we were not able to leave the café. There was no media coverage of this brutality. Twitter was the only source of information and I was trying to follow every second of the feeds. I was furious and also felt completely disillusioned. A voice inside me was screaming “HOPE IS A CURSE! I TOLD YOU!”
At 10 am protesters who had now gathered outside Gezi Park made a statement to the press condemning the police brutality. After the press statement people tried to enter the park, and police once again fired tear gas. A couple of protestors, including the well-known journalist Ahmet Şık, were shot in the head with tear gas capsules. The police started to chase people in the streets but they were met with passive resistance – protesters stood still, some with their arms held up, some sitting on the ground. At 1 pm another statement was made — this time at Taksim Square. Then we heard that police once again had attacked.
We ran to help, but people had already dispersed. On the way back police were firing tear gas everywhere. A gas capsule fell next to my feet, I felt like I would never be able to breathe again. We washed our faces immediately with a mixture of water and Rennie tablets to neutralise the burning of the gas, and hid in an apartment building. I tried to come to grips with the reality of what was happening in front of my burning eyes. I could hear the sirens from outside and the screams of the people running. The same words going around in my head: Why all this violence and brutality? Why this hatred – who was it for? Once again I was witnessing how brutal male domination can be when people come together and say NO!
A young woman was hit by a capsule on her head, which left her in a coma for 30 days. She is still fighting for her life.
That day “Taksim Dayanışması” (Taksim Solidarity) the platform of nearly a hundred NGOs, political parties, and trade unions, that started the campaign against the planned shopping mall in Gezi Park called people to come together at Gezi Park at 7 pm. That day millions of tweets called for a gathering at Gezi Park.
All the time that Taksim was in chaos, there was nothing about what was happening in the mainstream media. Even more absurdly, one of the main news channels was showing a documentary about penguins while thousands of people were being attacked in the centre of Istanbul. This inspired a wave of satirical graffiti around the city – penguins in gas masks with slogans of defiance. We couldn’t go home because all the roads were closed and every minute more and more people appeared on the streets with goggles, helmets and plastic bottles filled with Rennie and water to protect each other from the effects of the gas.
Hearing the sounds of helicopters mixing with the sirens of the ambulances I felt completely disorientated. I closed my eyes and opened them… People falling on the ground in pain barely visible through the gas… I closed my eyes and opened them again to look for the helicopters I could only hear… I closed my eyes and opened them… A street dog lying on the ground… I closed my eyes and tears flowed in to my mouth tasting of pepper. My lips formed the word ENOUGH!
“I have seen how violence was created, when Patriarchy became merciless.
It was so cruel that I was frightened…
When the lives of those given by women were slaughtered by Patriarchy …
I saw nothingness…
The lives of those given by women were turning into fear and violence…
When we silently screamed ‘enough’, the cruelty of violence is so dense…
Enough, I feel shame.
Enough, I am a woman, violence was not born of me…”
On the night of 31st of May hundreds of thousands of people tried to reach Taksim Square on foot. We spent an hour on the street and then went to our friend’s home nearby. We could smell the gas inside the house and hear the ambulances, helicopters and people banging pots and pans in support of the protests from the windows of their houses. Then the first clashes between police and the protestors started; they carried on all night. We didn’t sleep at all.
1 June
In the morning Taksim was like a battlefield. The square was still surrounded by the police, and the protestors were still in the streets. Any one attempting to enter the square was forced back by the police.
Around 5:20 am, thousands of people started to march from the Asian side of Istanbul and crossed the Bosporus Bridge on foot to reach Taksim. They were joined by a big rally which had been planned months before to take place on 1 June on the Asian side. The government gave them permission and the police blockade was lifted. Hundreds of thousands of people entered Taksim Square. It was peaceful there but we heard about outbreaks of violence elsewhere because protests had spread to many parts of Istanbul and all around Turkey.
A group of high-profile artists, actors, directors, writers came together to appeal directly to the governor to stop the excessive use of police force, which they felt was responsible for the escalating violence. They couldn’t contact him so they sent out a call to fellow artists to join them in Cihangir Park to make a filmed appeal from the demonstration. I was there, too. When we entered the square there were nearly a million people and it was almost impossible to move through the crowds. Memet Ali Alabora, president of the actors union, spoke for the artists, addressing the governor and calling for peace; his speech was filmed and broadcast live as part of the first TV coverage of the demonstration.
Soon after the statement was made, I managed to get back to my house. I had no idea that I was to become a prisoner in my own home. From that moment until the day, two months later, when I decided to leave the country for good, I would only go outside once, for an hour, to the local shops.
At night clashes between police and protestors became increasingly brutal. That was when everything started to be broadcast internationally.
After the broadcasts went out all around the world the government, in an attempt to explain away what was happening, claimed that it was a conspiracy, a plot sponsored by foreign countries designed to bring us down. The only way the government could make sense of it was to find to someone to blame it on and to punish those responsible.
4 June
As the police violence increased more and more people left their houses and went out onto the streets. The more police brutality there was, the more people gathered in solidarity. The more thuggish the behavior of the police the more protestors responded with humour and satire – graffiti started to appear on the walls.
During the demonstrations the government had tried to control the flow of information, but they had failed to understand the significance of social media. They learned a valuable lesson — censoring the media had not prevented the people from finding out what was going on. In fact it had the opposite effect. It spawned thousands of new social media users, who understood — some for the first time — what young people have known all their lives, that new media has transformed the way we share and access information and ideas.
This change in perception was more threatening to the authorities than any weapon and signals the transition from the analogue to digital world order. In Gezi Park there was no leader, everything started and developed spontaneously. The majority of the protesters were from the new digital generation, who connect with the world, using technological tools to access the free flow of information and to express themselves freely.
As the Turkish prime minister said: Twitter has become a troublemaker.
Instead of listening to us — to the citizens — the prime minister, like an authoritarian father, tried to silence us, gave orders to the police to attack and harm us — seven young people and a police officer died, 4,329 people were injured some lost their eyes, others their arms, a few still in hospital — all because of the excessive police violence.
Instead of trying to understand what we were feeling, he told us he didn’t care. For thousands of years patriarchy has perpetrated violence by ignoring its conscience. Our prime minister said Obey Me. Arrogant, ignorant, oppressive, persistent and irreconcilable as always. Here were the age-old violent tactics of male domination used against men and women whose crime was to come together to protect nature from needless destruction.
The world thinks Turkey is a third world country, but in Gezi Park the demonstrators supported modern secular universal values. They didn’t say we are hungry or we want a job. Instead they said, “We respect nature and defend the lives of the trees. We want to exist as who we are, we want religious, sexual and cultural freedom. We don’t want racial, ethnic or political discrimination. We want free flow of information, we want free expression.”
Read Index’s interview with Arikan: A conversation with Meltem Arikan, Turkish playwright and author (7 January 2014)
This article was posted on 22 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
