The summer came late this year. So did the Turkish Spring. A week ago, few would have guessed that people from all walks of life would join this week’s protests in Turkey. After all, public protests are not a commonly accepted thing in Turkey. Especially in the post-1980 military coup era public, protests are mostly depicted both by politicians and by the mainstream media as works of “marginal groups.”

The protests that spread throughout all Turkey started at the Taksim Square in Istanbul. The AKP government planned to change the structure of Taksim Square, which involved the uprooting of trees in the Gezi Park in Taksim. The plan was to rebuild the demolished Topçu Barracks from the Ottoman Empire, adding a new shopping mall. Concerned with the diminishing sources of oxygen and gathering places in Istanbul, environmentalist protests started in the park. Another common concern was that public recreational areas as well as forests are demolished as a result of the arrangements between the government and groups within the business sector. The movement was commonly named “Occupy Gezi,” saluting its predecessors. The police harshly crushed the peaceful protesters. People were injured and killed as a result of compressed water, plastic bullets and tear gas attacks.

This news was not easy to follow. The mainstream media refused to give sufficient coverage of the state terror. News channels that would normally cover breaking events live only covered the protests briefly. The coverage was sterile and did not focus on the asymmetrical force used by the police. People have had to search for alternative news sources to reach reliable information. The social media, once more, turned into an invaluable source. People shared names of channels that covered the protests and the police reactions. Many people followed the news from Halk TV or channels streaming over the internet.

The protests spread to other cities, Ankara and Izmir being two of the most prominent ones. Even within the cities, protests have varied in their emphases. What is for sure is that this movement, like other occupy movements, does not have a hierarchical leadership or strong party identification. Nevertheless, Taksim creates an important focal point for the movement. A commonly heard slogan in today’s protests everywhere was “Her Yer Taksim, Her Yer Direnis (Everywhere is Taksim, Resistance is Everywhere)!.” I heard it being used in Kadikoy and Bostanci in Istanbul. Throughout Turkey, it was used as a slogan in Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Bolu, Adana, Artvin to name a few. Protesters abroad used the slogan in Berlin, London, Madrid and beyond.

The movement also provided a momentum that had legal and political consequences. The head of the Constitutional Court, Haşim Kılıç has stated that state interference in the lifestyles of citizens is unacceptable. The Sixth Administration Court of Istanbul, in response to a motion from Taksim Gezi Park Preservation and Embellishment Association, suspended the Topçu Barracks Project.

The protests are about much more than the park. They reflect the anger over the years of repression and the hubris of the government. The variation in the locations of these protests demonstrate how broad the basis is. Social and political priorities of the groups vary but all are equally fed up with the growing authoritarianism of the regime. Teenagers were there, so were old people. The most economically prosperous neighborhoods in Istanbul showed their solidarity with the protesters in Taksim by gathering in the streets, building long car convoys, honking, banging pots and pans, opening and closing the lights in their apartments at night. Supporters of the fiercest rival soccer teams (Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Besiktas) joined the protests, with their jerseys on and walking arm in arm with one another.

The way the government have responded to the protests shows the world that as a democracy, Turkey still has a long way to go. Perhaps the first step is to understand that the rights and duties of citizens in democracies are not limited to showing up once at the ballots every four years and then keeping silent until the next elections. People have things to say, about issues such as what they can consume in the public sphere, about the landscape they inhabit, and the constitution that governs them. If the government does not provide legal and institutional means for the citizens to make their voices heard, they will create their own platforms as the recent protests demonstrate.