Commentary: Riots, Resistance and Repression: Notes on the Gezi Protests

When police forces stormed the small Gezi Park in Taksim Square in Istanbul to disperse the small number of crowd who set up tents, neither the government nor the public and observers expected that this minor incident would spark nationwide waves of protests against the AKP government. The May 31, 2013 incident marked a significant turning point in Turkish history in the sense that a new form of protest was introduced and the AKP government faced a strong civilian resistance for the first time since it came to power eleven years ago.