T

his refers to a letter titled 'Campaign against Turkish govt,' (The Jakarta Post, June 8, p8) by Khawaja Umer Farooq, Jeddah.

The writer said: 'During the subsequent agitation, several shops, public transportation vehicles and government offices were looted and burned by angry mobs'.

As I was there during the first four days of the resistance (direnis), I observed first-hand that there were no mobs but people who were merely asking for their democratic rights and were answered with police brutality and an excessive use of force.

I was staying in a hotel that was no more than 700 meters from Taksim Square and hotel guests commented that if such a demo happened in another country, with tens of thousands people assembling and marching without any organization and authority, there would be looting and the burning of shops and buildings.

Whereas in general Turkish and, in particular, Istanbul people demonstrated peacefully but were subjected to police brutality (please look at the photos on social media sites and in international media), there was no looting or vandalism besides a few shop windows being smashed and some painted with slogans, which were cleaned the following day by demonstrators.

Regarding the government offices, there are few government offices in Istanbul as the capital of Turkey is Ankara, and I haven't heard in any other media reports that government offices were damaged.

The job of a government is to improve the quality of life of its citizens, and in last decade most countries have improved; I have witnessed this as I have traveled to more than 70 countries during the past 11 years.

I would like to remind your readers that Turkey has a debt of more than US$400 billion, all her state assets have been sold or privatized and there are billions of dollars in black money in the economy that can disappear overnight!

Of course, President Erdogan's government has done many good things economically and it has improved the quality of life, which I believe should be considered normal as he was given a majority to rule the country for the last three terms.

However, these protests show that despite this so-called economic comfort, people are not happy with his arrogance. What joins all these different groups of people together is the common sentiment that an increasingly autocratic Mr. Erdogan is determined to impose his world view and he is trying to be a social engineer.

I will quote from The Economist: 'Above all, the protests suggest that Turkey's democracy is maturing and that civil society has taken root. The protesters are determined not to allow their movement to be hijacked by mischief-makers.

They shun violence, clear the litter after each rally, and have set up hotlines for the injured ' cats and dogs included. Restaurants and hotels have thrown open their doors.'

The above is a true and objective view of the protests, which is contrary to Mr. Farooq's letter.

Yuksel
Jakarta