Letter from Turkey: “International solidarity for total victory”

Hi comrades! Things are pretty steady nowadays in Izmir. There is not much of a change. I wasn’t in the downtown yesterday but I was there the day before. Everybody seems to be enjoying the “revolution”.

However, in Istanbul (in a neighbourhood called Gazi district where radical leftist people live and which the media choose to ignore most of the time) and Ankara, there have been violent clashes.

Thanks so much to you and your comrades who supported our cause. It is great to see that we are not alone in our fight! I will share your letter with the revolutionaries I know.

By the way, our demands from the government are starting to be clearer. We want them to stop the police brutality and impeach those who are responsible for it (governors, commissioners, individual police officers, etc.). We want a more democratic society where freedom of speech is exercised properly. We want government to regulate the election laws (there is a 10% election threshold). These are the things that everyone can agree upon.

However, the AKP seems (and sounds) like they don’t care about what people think or want. All they want is to remain in power. Also anyone people are figuring out from their speeches that they panicked and will yield pretty soon... For example, at first they were talking about early elections (originally scheduled to be on June 2015) but then they probably realized that they have lost so much support that they had to give that up.

It seems people are not going back to their homes anytime soon! They might have to gather every week from now on. I’m hoping that protesters will attempt something that will really challenge the government and force them to act sometime in the near future, such as a general strike.

Anyways that's pretty much all for now. I'll keep sharing updates.

Thanks again for everything you and the other comrades are doing.

International solidarity for total victory!

Comradely...