These
photos reveal the ugly side of the Turkish economic miracle: an
authoritarian neoliberal state willing to kill in order to preserve its
place.
Editor’s note: We
do not share this post lightly. Over the course of the past couple of
days, the Turkish government — one of the main allies of the United
States in the region and a prospective member of the European Union —
has launched a brutal crackdown on its own citizens. Peaceful protesters
have been beaten, clubbed, kicked, gassed, hosed, strangled, shot at
and killed. At least three are reported dead and many thousands injured,
while police violence continues unabated.
The
aim of this photo collection is to spread awareness about the extreme
abuse of state power by the Erdogan government, the impunity of Turkish
police as they publicly torture and maim their fellow citizens, and the
bloody extremes to which the neoliberal state is willing to go in its
suppression of human dignity and democratic principles. ROAR stands in
solidarity with those who have chosen to struggle for freedom, justice
and democracy everywhere. We reject the shallow hypocrisy of
those world leaders — most notably US and EU officials — who not only
provide the very weapons with which the Turkish state is currently
quashing popular dissent, but who also continue to disrespect the right to peaceful protest of their own citizens back home.
WARNING: The photos below are extremely graphic and shocking.
Please proceed in full knowledge of the fact that whatever you see here
is happening to real people living in a supposedly democratic state —
one that has been touted by Western media as a “role model” for the
post-revolutionary Arab world and that has in recent years become a
darling of the Obama administration, the European Union and the
international business community. While prime minister Erdogan himself
is directly and principally responsible for these heinous acts of state
terror, the tragic deaths and horrible injuries seen below can by no
means be isolated from the responsibility of the global community in
sustaining his increasingly authoritarian rule.
It is for this reason that we share these photos below.
In solidarity,
The ROAR Collective
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