At the Divan Hotel, the lobby is full of vomit—everyone is vomiting because the police are shooting gas directly into an enclosed space. Many are wounded. The police warn that they’ll arrest anyone who comes out. No one, but no one, has any clue why they’re doing this. Thousands try to march to Taksim Square in solidarity. The police gas them all. They kick and assault a cameraman trying to film the Divan Hotel. Sound bombs and tear gas no longer seem to frighten the crowd as much as they did. I worry this will prompt the cops to move up to something that will. The police burn the “wishing tree” in Gezi Park where protesters had hung messages with their dreams, and cart everything else off in dump trucks. Finally, the police allow ambulances into the Divan to take out the injured. But they keep gassing for miles in every direction. The US embassy is completely silent—not even a pro-forma call for “restraint on both sides.” The British consulate is not quite so silent. They Tweet, “@LeighTurnerFCO #istanbul 0045-tear-gas becoming eye-watering at #British Consulate-General c 1 km from Taksim Sq.” Chief Negotiator and Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bağış announces that anyone in Taksim Square will be “treated as a terrorist.” In Turkey, this usually means “jailed for life or shot on sight.” His years of patient negotiations with the EU are undermined when police burst into and gas the Hilton Hotel, dousing Germany’s Green Party co-chair, Claudia Roth, with astringent chemicals that leave her skin so red it’s practically fluorescent. I saw the photos. Not even fury can account for a human face turning that color.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 10:02:47 +0000
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