On this day in 2013, Turkish protesters began occupying Gezi Park to oppose its demolition, an act with led to widespread protests and strikes with approximately 3,500,000 participants, 22 deaths, and more than 8,000 injuries.
The wave of civil unrest across Turkey began after the park occupation was violently evicted by police, who used to tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons to try and break up the protests, injuring more than one hundred people and hospitalizing a journalist.
The protest quickly grew in size - by May 31st, 10,000 gathered in Istiklal Avenue. In June, the protests became national in scope and transcended any particular demographic or political ideology. Among the wide range of concerns brought by protesters were issues of freedom of the press, expression, and assembly, as well as the alleged political Islamist government's erosion of Turkey's secularism.
Millions of Turkish football fans, normally divided by intense sports rivalry, marched in unity against the government. Protesters displayed symbols the environmentalist movement, rainbow banners, depictions of Che Guevara, different trade unions, and the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan.
On June 4th, Taksim Dayanışması (Taksim Solidarity) issued a set of demands that included the preservation of Gezi Park, an end to police violence, the right to freedom of assembly, and an end to the privatization of public spaces. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç met the group on June 5th and rejected these demands.
Erdoğan blamed the protests on "internal traitors and external collaborators", demonizing his political opposition as the former. Despite the popular mobilization, Erdoğan remained in power and no major concessions were won from the government.
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If anyone remembers my weird pipeline of a game idea that would be an rpg sorta styled along the band on the run ideas of Blues Brothers and just the idea of the party being a band and being in tour being the quest as well as the major part which is a very specific aesthetic, Streets on Fire and Miami Connection are the biggest but also The Warriors, the Shoemaker batman movies, Suburbia and the movies that ripped them off (aside from Miami connection, the UR ripoff). Everyone knows martial arts and is in a band and they're incredibly militsnr about they're genre and other stuff. It has been STICKING to me and I keep adding. I can at least make a really good GURPS based tabletop. Wish I could vidya game good. Road to Rebel City lives in my brain now.
It's mostly incredibly stylized worldbuilding that doesn't need to make sense but fits a good rock n roll journey/old timey jrpg progression. Like a boring suburban starter town where you and your initial bandmates live that I've yet to invent a clever Anytown replacement for. Battle of the bands and scummy local band stuff. Second town I feel needs to be heavily themed around rockabillys as an antagonist, then a boomer classic rock town being invade by an equivalent of the British etc on your road to revel city. Town by town rock history where everyone is the exact stereotype of that time and place.