Erdo-gone? After Taksim, Turkish Leader’s Political Future May Hang in the Balance
By Piotr Zalewski / IstanbulJune 04, 2013
By Sunday night, most of the businesses on Istiklal Avenue, Istanbul’s biggest pedestrian street, seemed to have had their front teeth knocked in. ATM screens glared and winked stupidly from behind broken glass monitors. Display windows were smashed up, facades and metal shutters covered with anti-government graffiti. Near Bekar Street, young people had taken over a number of buildings. Music, along with leftist banners, wafted out from their windows. Profiting from the lack of police, which had withdrawn from the area on June 1, vendors at the northern end of the street hawked bottles of beer, in plain and symbolic defiance of a recent ban on retail sales of alcohol between 10pm and 6am. (The bill, rushed through by Parliament last week, hasn’t yet been signed into law by President Abdullah Gül.)
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