Email from Istanbul

A Slog reader writes…

I’m from Seattle and I currently live in Istanbul. I just want to weigh in on the context to all this—I’ve been reading all the coverage, from social media sites and official news sites, and there’s too many people making quick judgments or misunderstanding certain details.

Virtually any protest in crowded parts of town draws a significant armed police presence—I would say a dozen guys with machine guns. The baseline is higher for police violence/response, nobody thinks there’s anything wrong with police hitting people. But in normal situations 95% of the time police are supportive and nonthreatening. On the other hand I don’t want people to get the impression that Turkey is way different from the US, because in so many ways it’s just the same. People have normal everyday jobs, hang out at Starbucks with their iPads, complain about traffic, it’s not culturally like the Middle East, as so many people seem to think it is.

The police response to the protests is much more serious than anything Occupy experienced in the state, and it’s important for the state department to condemn the police response here—Tayyip has listened to the US a lot in the past. We saw plenty of this during the serious days of Occupy, but we never saw (trigger warning, a little graphic) this. In both cases, the police went too far but it’s so much further here:

1) Police are covering their ID numbers on their helmets so they can’t be identified.

2) PM Erdoğan said on TV just a couple days ago, “Social media is the worst menace to society,” and is engaged in a serious misinformation campaign. Most news outlets aren’t covering the protests at all.

3) There’s reports of AKP (the current political administration) thugs in plainclothes beating people in the street, joining protesters to track them for the police, luring injured people to “doctors” and “nurses” but actually kidnapping them for the police later.

The US government can condemn this kind of thing, and the people of Turkey would really appreciate it. This doesn’t have to be like Syria, nobody wants a civil war, but there needs to be international attention otherwise Erdogan will think he can get away with anything.

If I could sum up everything I’d just give you this video:

Some of it might be upsetting to some viewers, but I think you can/should post it on Slog.