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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does anyone have any sources on that that "china invited everyone to see the 'uyghur camps', the west refused, but all the muslim countries went and said it was chill" thing? and/or adrian zenz being fucking insane? my lib friend has turned out to be suprisingly open to being chinapilled, but the whole ~genocide~ bullshit is a big stumbling block
suprisingly enough, trying to find things that counter US propaganda through google isn't working out well
There's this map from axios (yuck) but the article is dogshit and doesnt say what really matters
Strong reccomend for the UN final report on Xinjiang.
Show him Zenz's own report where he says "this is our best evidence" and presents data suggesting that 80% of new IUD insertions occurred in Xinjiang. Then look at the article Zenz cites for this data to show him how it absolutely does not reflect that
I would ask them why they think china wants to genocide the Uighurs, what the point is, and how that goal lines up with them being historically exempt from population control like the one child policy or the fact that their population has been, and still is, steadily increasing for decades. Does China want to wipe them out but is just very bad at genocide? Or maybe... they don't want to do a genocide