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It has been a long and eventful week in Istanbul. It will be hard for many who were there to forget the scenes reminiscent of war on the streets around Taksim Square and Gezi Park, the site of the protests, on Tuesday evening and into the night. After apparently conciliatory tweets from Istanbul governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu to the young protesters occupying Gezi Park just a day earlier, and following indications that the prime minister was ready to sit down to talks over the protests on Wednesday, both leaders made an astonishing about-face. Apparently finding no contradiction with their earlier words, they authorized a decision for riot police to enter Taksim Square on the pretext of clearing “the banners and flags of illegal organizations” at 7 in the morning on June 11.

For hours, police fired teargas and water cannons at a handful of protesters ready to fight back with stones and firebombs, and more worryingly, used the same tactics against a peaceful human chain of protesters in the square. Awful as they were, the scenes in the morning were the mere dress rehearsal for the piece de resistance later in the day: an early evening teargas attack against tens of thousands of peaceful protesters―young people, professionals coming from work, families, retired people―assembling in the square and the streets around in reaction to the morning’s events. After some signs the week before that government figures, including the prime minister, had accepted that police actions against nonviolent protesters camped in the Gezi Park had been disproportionate, the police attacks on Tuesday seemed to take us back to square one.

The Turkish Medical Association has to date recorded four deaths. One protester in Antakya died from injuries to the head, one protester in Ankara was shot in the head by a police officer, one in Istanbul was hit by a car, and a police officer in Adana died after falling from a bridge. The Association also recorded that 55 people were heavily injured; that 5 people remain in a critical condition, and that 10 people incurred injuries resulting in the loss of eyes. Thousands of people received medical treatment for exposure to tear gas and among those were people who suffered complications as a result of this exposure.

Rather than investigating a few incidents of police abuse, is it not time for a full inquiry into public order policing over the past two weeks in Istanbul, as well as in Ankara, Izmir, and other cities where there has been much less media coverage? What has become evident is that there were repeated and multiple errors of policing over that period and that the Turkish authorities need now to do what they have never done in the past and focus on chain-of-command responsibility and hold senior police chiefs and the governor responsible for a catastrophic failure to prevent widespread abuses. It is hard to think that senior figures in the police force and governing the Istanbul province shouldn’t step down from office after such a catalogue of disasters.

While the scenes of Tuesday remain vivid, by Friday morning we reached a new point. On Thursday night came news of a surprise late meeting between the prime minister and representatives of Taksim Solidarity, a platform encompassing some 80 different groups occupying the Gezi Park who have put forward 5 concrete demands starting with their key demand to keep the park as a park. The result of this meeting―the first serious effort at negotiating with the protesters―is that the government has agreed to await the decision of the administrative court on whether the construction project on the site of the park should go ahead or not.

If the court rules against the project, there will be no need for the government to hold a mini referendum among Istanbul’s population, which had been suggested as another solution. The government would have to comply with the court decision if the Gezi Park project gets rejected―though the matter may go to the highest administrative court for a final ruling.

The Gezi Park protesters are due to discuss the latest developments this evening. Will they continue their occupation of the park or opt for other tactics now that they have succeeded in conveying their demands to the government and making some progress?

This weekend sees the prime minister attend two huge rallies of his supporters in Istanbul and Ankara. After sitting down to talk with the protesters’ representatives, will this be the end of the repeated criticism of vague foreign forces, business interests, and the international media, all of whom have come under attack in speeches by the prime minster and other government figures? What will be the fall-out for those under investigation for “inciting criminality” with their tweets, and will there really be restrictions or attempts to close down television channels that broadcast scenes of the protests? Will the fall-out be a continuing crackdown on free speech and the media? And will doctors who volunteered to treat injured people in make-shift clinics really be investigated on the orders of the minster of health for failing to get permission to discharge their professional duty to treat the sick?

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