The unrest in Turkey grows as a widespread Turkish protest movement that the government describes as riots moves into its third day. According to a BBC report , the protest began quietly when people gathered to object to plans to build a shopping center at the site of Istanbul’s Gezi Park near the city’s modern heart, Taksim Square.
The protestors had originally come together to stop the park’s trees from being uprooted.
When police broke up the protest with tear gas and water cannons, tens of thousands of people took to the streets — not just in Istanbul but in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, and as many as 67 other Turkish towns.
An estimated 10,000 people gathered in Taksim Square on Sunday, calling for Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resign.
Instead, Erdogan has taken a hardline. The protestors were again moved with tear gas and water cannons, and he still insists that Gezi Park will be demolished.
A Bloomberg Businessweek report said that Erdogan blames social media for the uprising rather than his plan to remove one of the few green spaces near Taksim Square:
“There is now a menace which is called Twitter. The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.”
With an invitation like that, how you can resist heading over to that menace called Twitter to check it out? But be warned. The images coming from Turkey are heart-breaking.
BEFORE & AFTER THE POLICE!!! SHARE PLEASE!!! #Turkey twitter.com/MhmtGunsur_Fan…
— Anonymous(@AnonOpsMob) June 2, 2013
And there’s something else. Anonymous has now declared #OpTurkey on Twitter in support of the anti-government protests. Their “hacktivists” said that they have taken down some municipal and pro-government websites.
There’s a whole lot more information on that activity…guess where. Yeah, it’s Twitter.
As rumors spread that Prime Minister Erdogan will limit internet access, Anonymous is now spreading passwords to free VPN networks in Turkey. A Virtual Private Network is the equivalent of a private network whose nodes are connected together over the public internet using encryption to protect their communications.
The more I look into it, the more I can see why PM Erdogan isn’t crazy about the menace called Twitter. Maybe he should think twice about the so-called Turkish rioters and just let the trees live?
Anonymous has said that they plan “to attack every Internet and communications asset of the Turkish government.”
[Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan photo by Nilgun Gulcan via Wikimedia Commons]
