ATIK | Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe | AHM-ATIK News Center
ANTAKYA | 10- 09-2013 | 22 year-old Ahmet Atakan died midnight while joining the protests in the southern province of Antakya late Monday evening. The young man who was hit on the head with a tear gas canister fired by police at the protests was critically wounded and rushed to Antakya state hospital where he was confirmed to have lost his life 15 minutes later.
Police continued to attack people as they gathered in front of the hospital after Atakan’s death. Police threw tear gas inside the hospital as well.
Thousands of people in the neighborhood of Armutlu took to the streets late Monday in solidarity with the people in Tuzluçayır, ODTÜ and Okmeydanı where police are brutally attacking demonstrators since the ODTÜ resistance has began recently in protest against a construction project of the Ankara Municipality which will see a highway built through the ODTÜ campus.
Similar to how Gezi Park protests were sparked, a group of students erected tents and started to camp on the campus to prevent the construction of the road that will cross land owned by the university and requires cutting down a large number of trees on its way.
Ankara police, having already been on the scene since August 25, intervened protestors in the campus area on September 6. More people joined the protests, firstly in Ankara, then Istanbul and other cities as police forces increased the use of excessive force against protestors.
People who took to the streets in solidarity with the ODTÜ resistance have all been subjected to brutal police crackdown. Dozens of demonstrators have been wounded and taken into custody during protests in the last three days.
The neighborhood of Tuzluçayır in Ankara’s Mamak district has since Sunday been a scene of violent clashes between police and local people protesting against a government project, a mosque-djemevi combination, which locals see as an assimilation project against Alawi minorities, a joint organization by Fethullah Gülen and Cem Association.
The police terror in the neighborhood is being condemned and protested by thousands of others taking to the streets in other cities.
Ali İsmail Korkmaz (19, Eskişehir), Abdullah Cömert (22, Antakya), Ethem Sarısülük (26, Ankara), Mehmet Ayvalıtaş (20, Istanbul) had been killed by police during Gezi Park protests in July. (ANF)
