To His Excellency Abdullah Gül

President of the Republic of Turkey

T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Genel Sekreterliği

06689 Çankaya

Ankara, Turkey

July 1, 2013

Your Excellency,

We write to you to express our grave concern regarding the developments in Turkey in connection with the popular protests that began with the protection of trees in Gezi Park in Taksim. As a result of unexpectedly harsh police repression, these protests soon grew to encompass widespread grievances about government intrusion into different forms and values of life and to express the democratic demands of the masses. These demands include greater transparency and popular participation in processes of decision-making about urban restructuring plans and reforms, better accountability of political leaders and bureaucrats, the protection of fundamental rights, and the speedy and effective public prosecution of members of the security forces, whose use of excessive and targeted force on peaceful protestors has scandalized the global public.

As current faculty of the New School for Social Research, which was founded as a home for scholars who became refugees of Nazi rule in Europe and who were known to the world as the “University in Exile,” we are proud to maintain a sincere and ongoing commitment to fostering democracy around the world, the freedom of speech and protest, and the free exchange of ideas. We see this commitment as the constituent element of our history and identity as a research institution that cultivates the highest standards of scholarship as well as the ethos of public engagement and active citizenship.

In this light, we are deeply concerned about the news from Turkey regarding the violent suppression of protestors, the arbitrary detention of individuals on grounds such as participation in peaceful demonstrations, use of social media, provision of volunteer medical care to the wounded protestors, or exercise of legal representation or counsel, and the preemptive labeling of peaceful protestors as “terrorists” by members of the government. We consider the wave of arbitrary detentions, some of which remain incommunicado, as a serious violation of the constitutional right of citizens in a democratic country to express their grievances and opinions in a peaceful way. The real test of a democracy is not only how it builds consensus among a plurality of values, different opinions, and interests, but also, and more importantly, how it treats dissent.

As faculty of the New School, we condemn police brutality and ask that those responsible for giving the orders as well as those executing the orders for the use of excessive force be immediately brought to justice. We denounce in the strongest possible terms the making of threats and intimidations toward individuals who exercise or plan to exercise their right of civil disobedience and toward those who shelter protestors from pressured water, tear gas, and rubber bullets. We ask for an immediate end to the detention of individuals who have done nothing other than participate in peaceful demonstrations. We call upon the government to cease its polarizing and demonizing rhetoric and its resort to measures reminiscent of a “state of emergency” in which citizens are treated like enemies. We encourage the adoption of a conciliatory public discourse as well as the active promotion of measures that enhance democracy, both through the decrease of the 10 per cent national electoral threshold and the creation of new, local channels for direct participation.

We express our deepest condolences for the four citizens of Turkey who have lost their lives in the recent events and our sympathies for those who have lost their eyes, suffer broken limbs, and endure other serious injuries. We are saddened by the thousands of people who have reported human rights abuses and physical injuries, and we are worried about those who face legal persecution on the seriously dubitable charges of terrorism and organized crime. We trust that Turkey will emerge a better and more democratic country from this experience but see that such an outcome will be possible only if the current situation is considered to be an opportunity to affirm fundamental rights and liberties, the legitimacy of peaceful disagreement and organized dissent, and the illegitimacy of the deployment of arbitrary violence, detention, and intimidation tactics by the state upon its own people. We appeal to your office to support our call.

Best regards,

Faculty of the New School for Social Research

New York City, NY, USA

Signatures:

Elaine Abelson

Zed Adams

Andrew Arato

Cinzia Arruzza

Banu Bargu

Tarak Barkawi

Jay M. Bernstein

Richard J. Bernstein

Omri Boehm

Chiara Bottici

Christopher Christian

Alice Crary

Simon Critchley

Stefania deKenessey

Oz Frankel

Nancy Fraser

Jeffrey Goldfarb

Orit Halpern

Lawrence A. Hirschfeld

Bill Hirst

Andreas Kalyvas

Paul Kottman

Benjamin Lee

Arien Mack

Elzbieta Matynia

Inessa Medzhibovskaya

William Milberg

Joan Miller

Dmitri Nikulin

Julia Ott

Timothy Pachirat

Ross Poole

Christian R. Proaño

Hugh Raffles

Janet Roitman

Lisa Rubin

Willi Semmler

Anwar Shaikh

Ann-Louise Shapiro

Rachel Sherman

Ann L. Stoler

Jenifer Tally

Miriam Ticktin

Kumaraswamy Velupillai

Ken Wark

Eli Zaretsky

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.