The Turkish police have moved in on the protesters in Gezi park. After over two weeks the protests has come to an end...for now. It remains to be seen of they are over for good. The protests started out as a protest against closing the park and exploded into a national protest. They have exposed a high level of anger against the administration and policies of Prime Minister Erdogan, one of the most powerful and charismatic men in the middle east. The protests have brought an international focus on internal problems in Turkey, a country that is routinely extolled as a model Islamic democracy.
Tensions Soar as Turkish Police Storm Protest Site
TURKISH police have stormed an Istanbul
park after protesters defied an ultimatum from Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan to end their occupation of the site, in a major
escalation of more than two weeks of anti-government unrest.
Two hours after Mr Erdogan warned of
police intervention if protesters did not leave Gezi Park, the
epicentre of nationwide protests, officers entered the green patch
firing volleys of tear gas and jets of water.
Thousands of campers scrambled as
police trampled tents, pulled down banners and broke down barricades
in the park. A city cleaning crew then swiftly moved in to clear the
site as darkness fell.
Earlier, police also used tear gas and
bursts of water to disperse hundreds of demonstrators from Taksim
Square, which borders Gezi Park.
The police action sent tensions soaring
in the civil unrest in which four people have been killed and nearly
7,500 injured, and has posed the biggest challenge yet to the
decade-long rule of Mr Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government.
The trouble first began when a peaceful
sit-in to save Gezi Park's 600 trees from being razed in a
redevelopment plan prompted a brutal police response on May 31.
The crackdown sparked an outpouring of
anger, snowballing into countrywide demonstrations against Mr
Erdogan, seen as increasingly authoritarian.
Tensions boiled over last night after
demonstrators in Gezi Park refused to clear out in return for Mr
Erdogan's promise that he would suspend the site's controversial
redevelopment.
Rebuffed, Mr Erdogan issued a stark
warning at an election rally attended by tens of thousands of
supporters of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the
capital Ankara.
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