Being Accountable

Protesters are engulfed in tear gas and sprayed by water canons at the entrance of the Divan Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, June 15, 2013 after being chased out of Gezi park. Protesters set up barricades and plumes of tear gas rose in Istanbul's streets into the early hours Sunday after Turkish riot police firing tear gas and water cannons cleared out the occupation of a park at the center of the strongest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 10-year tenure.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

"We know very well the ones that sheltered in their hotels -- those who co-operated with terror. Will they not be held accountable? If we do not hold them accountable, then the nation will hold us accountable."
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Doctors and nurses who made the unfortunate decision to use their medical skills to compassionately treat injured protesters have been amply rewarded by their government. They were detailed by security forces. This has been made public through the account of the legal offices of the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors.

And it is not only doctors, but lawyers too have been held by authorities, for they have come out in their numbers in support of the protesters. How dare they!?

And, as far as Prime Minister Erdogan is concerned, the owners of luxury hotels who exercised the abysmal judgement of providing refuge to protesters anxious to evade justice at the hands of riot police raiding their protest sites with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, are also and most obviously, linked to terrorism.

What else could conceivably explain their willingness to aid the terrorists posing as innocent Turkish protesters?

All the malcontents of Turkish society -- for no society however well adjusted and perfectly governed, is free of its social and political malcontents -- have come out to express their disaffection with the most effective government they have ever had the good fortune to be ruled by. According to the Istanbul Bar Association about 400 people were arrested on Sunday alone. Among them journalists.

One foreign photographer busy documenting the Saturday night clashes described how a white-helmeted police officer had torn off his gas mask, to ensure he would be completely engulfed in the cloud of tear gas, and while he was in a perilous state as a result, the officer forced him to clear his memory card of all photographs he had taken.

No doubt a matter of great elation to the police officer, at his clever circumstantial use of authority.

Riot police forewarned protesters that their rally was unlawful. If they did not immediately disperse, authorities would take action. Thousands of demonstrators in Ankara waved union flags, jumped and whistled, facing off about 50 metres from riot police. The demonstrations led by two major labour unions was comprised of middle-aged men who banged drums, and chanting women clasping hands, seated on the ground.

The deputy prime minster Bulent Arine, warned that if matters continued as they had over the past several weeks, the military might be called in. Troops could be mobilized, a state of emergency declared, if the police operations were unsuccessful in clearing out the protests. Local governors, he said, "can benefit from Turkey's military forces" under the law.

Prime Minister Erdogan, so disgusted with his Syrian neighbour's military crackdown on rebellion, appears to be taking his cue from the very source he has so vigorously disparaged.

But perish the thought that he could be considered an Islamist dictator.

His reaction to the peaceful activists shines an unwelcome spotlight on Turkey's version of democracy. Turkey's interior minister warned on Monday that anyone joining 'unlawful' demonstrations would "bear the legal consequences."