Statement of Occupy Gezi Park:

TO THE ATTENTION OF THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PARLIAMENT

1- Gezi Park must be kept and conserved as is. It must not be left to any construction under the name of a barracks, shopping center, residence, museum, etc.

2- Citizens, who assemble peacefully and unarmed using their constitutional rights, should never be subject to police violence. Those citizens who got arrested during the protests should be released. All political, bureaucratic and administrative people who order and direct attacks on protesters exercising their right to gather should be prosecuted under existing laws.

3- The main objective is that the privatization and environmental policies enacted by the government serve public interest. The transfer of public spaces, lands, beaches, forests, rivers, and urban symbols to private companies, corporations, holdings, and owners of capital from the hand of the people through sales and rentals must end.

4- Democracy is not just about going to the ballot box to vote. Democracy comes from the assurance provided by the state itself that each group in the populace can express freely their desires and dissatisfactions without fear, arrest, or torture. This protest is a struggle for freedom of expression and thought. The people who want to protect Gezi Park today and the people who defended the right to veil yesterday have gone under the same oppressive treatments. The Gezi Park resistance objects to all forms of oppression.

5- For days, we saw how TV channels, newspapers and news sites, entrusted to watch for the public good and give correct information, ignored the citizens of this country, youth and elderly, peacefully using their constitutional rights at the Taksim Gezi Park. That the public was not informed by mainstream media about the situation in the country until the fourth day of our protests shows the willful ignorance of professional ethics. We call on the media- especially those media bosses who have become wealthy because of the public- to pursue their professions ethically.

TO THE ATTENTION OF FELLOW PROTESTORS

The protest must continue until the awaited response emerges.

Vandalism, swearing, alcohol use, and environmental damage must be avoided in order to maintain the good character of the protest.

No political group, organization or ideology should be enabled to take hold of the protest. The protest must continue shoulder-to-shoulder with no discrimination of ethnicity, belief, political party or gender identity.

In order to avoid speculation, no information, tweet or rumor should be spread without vetting. No read or heard information should be taken for granted before being questioned.

The media channels, newspapers and news sites that make up false stories to justify the government’s actions, should be confronted by the protestors themselves. This media, of which we are the readers, spectators, and consumers, should be made alert to the problem by telephone and by e-mail and should be encouraged to take a neutral position.

Translation from Turkish by Gül Bilge Han and Wendy Meryem Kural Shaw.