Thousands greet defiant Erdogan
Turkey's prime minister again ratchets up rhetoric against protesters on his return to Istanbul
- guardian.co.uk,Friday 7 June 2013 02.17 BST
Tayyip Erdogan waves to supporters after arriving in Istanbul early on Friday morning. Photograph: Osman Orsal/Reuters
Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has delivered a fiery speech on his return to the country, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must end.
In the first large public show of support since anti-government protests erupted last week, more than 10,000 supporters cheered Erdogan outside an Istanbul airport.
Despite earlier comments that suggested he could be softening his stand, Erdogan was in combative mood on his return from a four-day trip to North Africa.
"These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end immediately," he said.
Erdogan's reaction has been seen as decisive in determining whether the demonstrations fizzle out or rage on.
"Those who raise their hands against the police should have their hands broken," his supporters chanted. Rights groups say thousands of people have been injured in the demonstrations. Three people have died – two protesters and a policeman.
"We stood strong, but we were never stubborn ... We are together, we are unified, we are brothers," Erdogan told his supporters, who had blocked roads to the airport for hours, waiting for him until long after midnight.
"They say I am the prime minister of only 50%. It's not true. We have served the whole of the 76m from the east to the west," Erdogan said at the airport, referring to his election win in 2011, when he took 50% of the vote.
Speaking before leaving Tunisia, Erdogan had attempted more of a balancing act, appearing to moderate his tone in an effort not to further inflame protesters.
Erdogan acknowledged that some Turks were involved in the protests out of environmental concerns, and said he had "love and respect" for them.
The protests started last week over objections to Erdogan's plan to uproot the square's Gezi Park to make way for a replica Ottoman barracks and shopping mall. Police's extensive use of tear gas and water cannons outraged many and sent thousands flooding into the square to support what had, until then, been a small protest.
In Tunisisa, Erdogan claimed terrorists had been involved in the protests, saying an outlawed left-wing militant group that carried out a suicide bombing on the US embassy in Ankara in February was taking part.
"They are involved. They have been caught in the streets and on social media," he said.
The difference is not in the government response, the difference lies in the foreign intervention.First, so if you win the elections you're allowed to do what Erdogan did? Ok, no problem, but then you have to apply the same logic when you talk about the 2009 protests in Iran too. Deal?
That's not a logical comparison.
That's double standards in my book.
Read again what I wrote.We're talking here about the observations, not the explanations. You're trying to work your way backwards here, establish the explanations first, and then build the "observations" that suits your explanations on them.
The discussion started because some here are trying to find excuses or completely deny that Erdogan did anything wrong. Some are even trying to set it as an example of how things in Syria should have been handled..
When the internet access is restricted a bit in Iran, it's a big deal! When Erdogan completely bans any sort of media coverage inside Turkey, closes all the websites than mention the protests, detain anybody talking about the protests on the internet, completely blocks facebook and twitter, and ask all the media of the neighboring countries to stop covering the protests, then it's just...
That's double standards in my book.
See that's the problem. The double standards. You're using the continuous protests against Morsi for 5 months as evidence to prove that Morsi didn't crush them, while you neglect the fact that the protests also went on for months in Iran, why isn't that a proof too that they weren't crushed?! The number of casualties in Iran isn't that different from those in Turkey either. Yet you give a different assessment to the situation in Iran, and the reason for that is that you don't assess the reaction itself, objectively, you look at the type of the government first, and then try to predict what a typical reaction from such a government would look like.
And by the way, if you agree that Ahmedinejad did indeed win the elections, then why are you calling him a dictator if he was elected by the majority of the people?! Shouldn't he have as much rights as Erdogan do for example?
Again, read again what I wrote. I wasn't talking about the past 30 years. I was talking about the protests that drew everybody's attention around the world.
Ok then, let's keep it short and to the point here. Isn't this my point? It doesn't matter if you're democratically elected or not when we're assessing the reaction of a leader to protests against him. You can be "democratically elected" but still "crush" opposition protests, or show the same reaction of a dictator. Being democratically elected has nothing to do with assessing how you handled the protests.
Read this in many other places but is not true. I have spoken with a friend of mine who is there in facebook. Dunno about twitter.
