The following is a timeline of the Gezi Park protests in Turkey of citizens and supporters against actions and plans of the government of Turkey. The timeline is segmented into days.
28–31 May 2013
On the morning of 28 May, around 50 environmentalists were camping out in Istanbul at Gezi Park, in order to prevent its demolition. The protesters, with the help of BDP MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder, initially halted attempts to bulldoze the park by refusing to leave. The Zabıta municipal police used tear gas to disperse the peaceful protesters and burned down their tents in order to allow the bulldozing to continue. Photos of the scene, such as an image of a young female protester (later nicknamed the ) holding her ground while being sprayed by a policeman, quickly spread throughout the media across the world. The Washington Post reported that the image "encapsulates Turkey's protests and the severe police crackdown", while Reuters called the image an "iconic leitmotif".
Alerted to the happenings by social media, on 29 May the size of the protests grew, as additional protesters joined the encampment and put up more tents. Other prominent people joined Sırrı Süreyya Önder in the protest, including Republican People's Party vice president Gürsel Tekin, actors and actresses Gonca Vuslateri, Memet Ali Alabora, Okan Bayülgen and Şebnem Sönmez.
On 30 May, police raided the protesters' encampments. Online activists' calls for support against the police crackdown increased the number of sit-in protesters by the evening.
Police carried out another raid on the encampment in the early morning of 31 May. The police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protesters to surrounding areasTurkish Weekly, 1 June 2013, ‘Occupy Taksim’ grows in spite of crackdown and set up barricades around the park to prevent re-occupation. Throughout the day, the police continued to fire tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons at demonstrators, resulting in reports of more than 100 injuries. Sırrı Süreyya Önder was hospitalised after being hit in the shoulder by a tear gas canister.New York Times, 31 May 2013, Police Attack Protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim Square Some protesters threw rocks at the security forces. The executive order regarding the process decided earlier had been declared as 'on-hold' on 31 May 2013. 10,000 gathered in Istiklal Avenue. According to governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, 63 people had been arrested and detained. The police use of tear gas was criticised for being "indiscriminate". The interior minister, Muammer Guler, said the claims of the use of disproportionate force would be investigated.
Protests also spread to Ankara and İzmir. In Ankara, a helicopter was used to fire tear gas at the protesters, and police were seen chasing demonstrators into shops with electric shock batons. Clashes between protesters and security forces continued all night long in Ankara. In İzmir, more than 10,000 people held a protest on 31 May, with demonstrators holding banners reading "Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance", "Resist Taksim, İzmir is with you", and "Chemical Erdoğan". Protesters in İzmir were also raided by police armed with tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons.
1 June
"About half past one the entire city [of Istanbul] started to reverberate. People were banging on pots, pans, blowing whistles," one eye-witness told BBC News. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç criticized the use of tear gas against demonstrators and stated, "It would have been more helpful to try and persuade the people who said they didn't want a shopping mall, instead of spraying them with tear gas".
Thousands of protesters from Kadıköy (the Asian side of the city) walked across the Bosphorus Bridge around 06:00 local time, to join the main protest groups in Taksim. They were met with police intervention.
At 3:45 pm, the police force started to withdraw from Taksim Square, letting protesters in. During the withdrawal, some protesters threw water bottles at the security forces, which resulted in the police use of tear gas.
The protests in Ankara that began on 31 May continued. The protesters, gathered mainly on Güven Park in the Kızılay neighborhood, were also interrupted by the police officers. The roads to the Kızılay square where protesters tried to gather were closed by the security forces. The security around the Başbakanlık Konutu and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey were also increased with the aid of the Turkish Gendarmerie. The security forces left the Kızılay square later and then nearly 10,000 people gathered there. During these protests an armed police water cannon called "TOMA (Intervention Vehicle against Social Incidents)" ran over a protester that was hiding behind the police barricades.
In Antalya, more than 10,000 people held a protest on 31 May, in Cumhuriyet square. Nearly 1,000 people tried to walk to the Çallı district where the AKP Antalya Headquarters are situated. Police met the protesters with tear gas and water cannons.
The president Abdullah Gul, also a member of the AKP, cut short a formal visit to Turkmenistan to return home and by midday stated that the protests had reached a "worrisome level".
Some have reported rumors of the police using a novel riot control chemical which some are calling "Agent Orange" against the protesters in Beşiktaş, but these are left as rumors as journalists (CNN, etc.) and experts told people that the police used a colored substance, mostly colored teargas and a colored gas to identify where the person got hit is. Though bearing the same nickname as herbicides and defoliants used by the British military during the Malayan Emergency and the US Military during the Vietnam War, the chemical used is believed to be a riot control chemical such as CR gas or the Skunk anti-riot chemical.
Helicopters have fired tear gas canisters into residential neighborhoods and police have used tear gas to try to smoke people out of buildings. Footage on YouTube showed one protester being hit by an armored police truck as it charged a barricade.Reuters, 2 June 2013. "Protesters defiant as Turkey unrest goes into third day"
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan gave a televised speech condemning the protesters and vowing that "where they gather 20, I will get up and gather 200,000 people. Where they gather 100,000, I will bring together one million from my party".
It was also announced that Erdogan would leave for an overseas official visit to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia and hence leave the country between 3 and 6 June during deepening domestic turmoil causing unprecedented resentment and outcry regarding prime ministerial travel expenses and purposes.
2 June
Videos showing the extent of police brutality started to surface on various websites. Other footage also showed police firing gas grenades directly at demonstrators. It was reported that Turkey's President Abdullah Gül contacted other senior leaders urging "moderation". After the call, Interior Minister Muammer Güler ordered police to withdraw from Taksim, allowing protesters to re-occupy the square. Protesters "shun violence". Demonstrators returning to the square organized to clean the square, which has become littered with debris.
In the afternoon Tayyip Erdoğan raised the possibility of building a museum instead of a shopping mall in the place of the Atatürk Cultural Center and Opera house, which currently stands to be demolished in Taksim Square. This mosque was probably part of the big project for redesigning Taksim but details were unknown before.
In İzmir, the day started with people, who started to clean the main streets and squares, which were polluted by the protests during 1 June. People cleaned the city almost for 5 hours but as the crowd got bigger and the police has been positioned around, cleaning stopped. Soon the crowd and protests got bigger. Police used random violence to disperse the crowds, even hitting teen girls on the boulevard. İzmir's Bornova and Alsancak neighborhoods saw fierce battles between protesters and riot police throughout the afternoon, with dozens of arrests made and damage to stores in the center of town by the police's use of water cannons. The Mayor of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, Aziz Kocaoğlu (CHP), got out in his civil outfit and walked with people to support the nature and democracy act.
In Istanbul police blocked the Bosphorus bridge to prevent protesters crossing to the European side as they had on previous days.Al Jazeera, 3 June 2013. "Turkey protests live blog" While the tension at Taksim square remained low, fights broke out between police and protesters in other neighborhoods of the city, such as Beşiktaş. Protesters repeatedly tried to get near to the office of the prime minister. Thousands of protesters went to media buildings in Istanbul, such as those of HaberTurk, that was airing an interview with the prime minister at that moment.
Particular anger was also provoked by the sighting of several civilians armed with bats and sticks following police on their way to curb protests, apparently with police support. Several videos showed armed civilians aiding police in brutally cracking down on protesters. Some civilians in videos and photos have been linked to positions in Ak Gençlik Kolları, the youth wing of the AKP. The use of AKP members in cracking down fueled further fury against the police and resulted in a bulldozer being hijacked in Beşiktaş, Istanbul and being driven towards police positions. Although initially resulting in police retreat, the bulldozer was finally set alight in the early hours of midnight.
Other cities where violent confrontations occurred between protesters and police were Adana and Antakya, not far from the Syrian border.
Reports emerged that the once powerful army faction that remained loyal to the secular establishment that the AKP largely watered down in its influence were distributing gas masks as assistance to protesters.
3 June
During the night riot police fired tear gas directly into the homes of civilians. Throughout Istanbul, and in different neighborhoods of Ankara, İzmir and Antalya, clashes occurred throughout the night. Protesters in İzmir set fire to the AKP's headquarters in the city. CNN Türk, the Turkish CNN channel, joined Ulusal Kanal and Halk TV in broadcasting live footage from the protests.
The Dolmabahçe Mosque welcomed protesters in and became a makeshift hospital; local restaurants and hotels also sheltered protesters.haberler.com, 4 June 2013, Beyoglu Businesses Aid Protesters, Tourists In Hour Of Need In Beşiktaş tourists and demonstrators were treated in mosques for severe injuries due to lack of ambulances. Police reportedly committed random acts of violence against protesters. The Shangri-La Hotel was used as a makeshift hospital as well.
AKP sympathizers were allegedly seen attacking men and woman on the streets of İzmir. In some cities AKP voters accompanied police.
Metin Feyzioglu, the President of the Turkish Bar Association (TBB), reported that in Ankara's Kızılay, police had targeted an infirmary and used gas grenades against the doctors and patients inside.
In the early hours of the day, several truck drivers escorted the protesters in order to shield them from police water cannons and tear gas in Beşiktaş. Protests got bigger in the afternoon as several unions called a general strike in response to "state terrorism." Several working protesters also joined the crowd after finishing work. Several protests were scheduled in the night in order to attract a larger turnout. Tens of thousands took to the streets in the afternoon in İzmir and Ankara.
In Ankara the offices of the newspaper Sol were ransacked by police, using tear gas and water cannon and manhandling three members of staff.Reporters without Borders, 6 June 2013, “Occupy Gezi” protests lead to wave of arrests of news providers