A Maltese journalist and civil rights activist in Istanbul has witnessed repeated police violence against peaceful protestors demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
You see violence all the time. The fear is tangible but the determination is stronger
“I have never seen anything like this in my life, it’s unbelievable,” Caroline Muscat told Times of Malta.
These past four days people were being beaten on the streets, she said, but the Government, which had almost complete control of mainstream Turkish media, had largely failed to report the protests.
“All you see on television is the crowning of Miss Turkey, a documentary on penguins, a cooking show and the speeches of the Prime Minister. There is no information on what is really happening in the streets,” Ms Muscat said.
What started a week ago as a relatively small, peaceful protest in Taksim Square to save an inner city Istanbul park from a vast shopping centre rapidly snowballed into the largest nationwide anti-government unrest in Turkey.
Hundreds have been injured so far, some seriously, by the heavy handed police response and excessive use of teargas and chemical sprays. The Turkey Doctors Association is saying that three days of protests have left more than 1,000 people injured in Istanbul and 700 in the capital, Ankara, alone.
The first known death was officially documented yesterday but Ms Muscat said that credible sources believe the death toll to be higher.
“The more the Prime Minister is insulting the people, the more they are turning up in great numbers,” she said.
The protesters are peacefully filing down in their thousands to the main squares in about 67 towns and cities in Turkey, especially at night time when the police start attacking.
“These are people from all walks of life, all ages, different political ideologies all united for one cause: change,” she said.
“I was in Taksim Square sitting next to an extremely agitated woman in her 60s. She told me that the Prime Minister had provoked her to come here,” she said.
“You see violence all the time. The fear is tangible but the determination is stronger,” she said.
According to Ms Muscat, whose partner is Turkish and has lived in Turkey for some years, citizens know that if they give up now the situation will be even worse.
Mr Erdogan is being compared to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. During the Arab Spring, Mr Mubarak had to pay for mercenaries to suppress the protesters. “Here it’s all home grown: the police brutality is unbelievable,” she said, adding the people were clamouring for Mr Erdogan’s resignation.
“This is a matter of human rights infringement,” Christina Basak, from Turkey, said. She lives in Malta but her mother and sister go daily to Taksim Square to protest. “If we remain silent we’ll be trampled upon,” she told Times of Malta.
She spoke of how the Prime Minister was becoming increasingly authoritarian. Last week, the government passed legislation curbing the sale and advertising of alcoholic drinks; he plans to ban abortion, and to install himself in the presidency role. “It is not his job to tell us how many kids we should have and what not to drink,” she said. “We do not want a dictator.”
Serdar Akkartal, a Turk who also lives in Malta, said that all his relatives and friends were out in the street protesting. “It looks silly that we started all this over an environmental protest but this is more than that. It’s about the increasing lack of freedom,” said Mr Akkartal, explaining how the anger and frustration among the Turkish citizens had long been building up.
Mr Erdogan was elected three times as Prime Minister, the last time in 2011 with 49 per cent of the popular vote. He was first elected in 2002 on the cry of a democratic Turkey. “Initially, we had hope but now he is using religion in his politics and we are a secular state,” Mr Akkartal said.
He said it was outrageous that chemical agents were being used to quell peaceful protests but believes the Prime Minister had the support of the United States and, so, “no major country is speaking up for our cause,” he said.
Asked whether he believed this would affect Turkey’s pending EU application process, Mr Akkartal said: “Eighty per cent of the Turkish people do not want to join the EU.”
The Consul General of Malta in Istanbul, Rueben Gauci, said he had received calls from concerned travellers. “Our advice is for people travelling here to avoid the protest areas”.