The project to construct a mall on the grounds of the current Gezi Park in the heart of Istanbul has stirred up a legitimate citizens' protest movement. All the ingredients of neoliberal arrogance were there: a pharaonic project providing the space for profit in a place which is socially full of history, opacity as well as the negation of the inhabitants' aspirations.

Facing this movement, which has grown to include thousands of citizens of Turkey, the Erdogan-Government has done what it always does: repressing it violently.

The Party of the European left strongly condemns this repression and demands the authorities of European countries to press their Turkish counterparts stopping the violence and that the detained demonstrators shall be freed.

Throughout Turkey, a lot of democratic and freedom aspirations are expressed: press freedom, trade union rights, the rights of the Kurdish people, women's rights, the right to demonstrate. Erdogan has to hear them.

Party of the European Left,
2nd of June 2013