Image: Gaya Gunay
The Gezi Park protests in Turkey started on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at what was perceived as the brutal eviction of a sit-in at the park protesting the plan. Subsequently, supporting protests and strikes took place across Turkey protesting a wide range of concerns, at the core of which were issues of freedom of the press, of expression, assembly, and the government’s encroachment on Turkey’s secularism. With no centralised leadership beyond the small organisation coordinating the original environmental protest, the protests have been compared to the Occupy movement and the May 1968 events. Social media played a key part in the protests, not least because much of the Turkish media downplayed the protests, particularly in the early stages. 3.5 million of Turkey’s 80 million people are estimated to have taken part in almost 5,000 demonstrations across Turkey connected with the original Gezi Park protest. Five people were killed and more than 8,000 were injured. The media’s response to the Gezi Park protests was to ignore the events. On 2 June 2013, at the height of the protest, CNN Turk aired a documentary about penguins. Although the major news channels eventually started to cover the incidents, the penguin has become the symbol of media black outs. Source: en.wikipedia.org
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