Istanbul: living off the fear
Yvo Buxton 15 September 2013
In the early hours of Tuesday morning (September 10), Ahmet Atakan (22 years old) died. He was hit by a tear gas canister to the head from 5m. away. After undergoing treatment in hospital, he died. The protest Ahmet attended was a solidarity demonstration in Antakya (the southernmost point of Turkey, sandwiched between Syria and the Mediterranean - also incidentally where the vast majority of Syrian refugees in Turkey are). This protest in Antakya was in response to the violent clashes that have taken place in Ankara for the last week, partly due to discrimination by Erdogan's government against the Alevi minority (whose temples of worship are still not recognised by this Sunni government); and partly due to a vast road being built through the Middle Eastern Technical University campus in Ankara: again, just like Gezi, an environmentalist concern catalysing into something much bigger.
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