Popular Protest

We deplore the recent crackdown of the Turkish government on its own citizens, the clearly unjustified use of tear gas, acts of force, gas canisters and smoke bombs that have resulted in a vast number of injuries, imperiling the lives of those who seek to exercise their basic freedoms of assembly and protest.  This assault of the Turkish government on its own people constitutes an attack on democratic principles and a departure from legitimate methods of governance  –  we unequivocally oppose such tactics of intimidation and state violence.  In the name of democratic principles, we call upon the Turkish government to cease these violent actions immediately.  We affirm the aims of the popular resistance to the privatization of public space, to the growing authoritarian rule dramatically instantiated by this objectionable display of state violence, and the preservation of public rights of protest. We call upon the government to (a) stop the beating of all protesters and those in the media who seek to represent their point of view, including lawyers and journalists; (b) cease obstructing access to medical care for the injured; (c) put an end to the practice of unlawful detention and sequestering of protesters, medical personnel and legal counsel and (d) facilitate access to medical care and legal representation for those injured by the police.  We call for the immediate end to this appalling state violence and we reaffirm the rights of popular dissent and resistance, the right to have access to a media uncensored by governmental powers, and the right to move and speak freely in public space as preconditions of democratic life.

Signed:

Tarik Ali, author and editor, New Left Review, UK

Tewfik Allal, Président du Manifeste des Libertés, France

Etienne Balibar, Universite Nanterre, France

Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley USA

Margaret Brose, University of California, Santa Cruz

Alex Demirovic, Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany

Lisa Duggan, New York University, USA

Cynthia Enloe, Clark University, USA

Eric Fassin, Universite Paris – 8,France

Michel Feher, Director, Zone Books, France

Alfredo Saad Filho, United Nations and SOAS, UK

Nilufer Gole,  Ecole des Hautes Etudes, France

Siba N Grovogui, Johns Hopkins University, USA

Ilker Ataç, University of Vienna

Hannes Lacher, York University, Canada

George Liagouras, University of the Aegean, Greece

Michael Lowy, CNRS, France

Adam David Morton, University of Manchester, UK

Matthieu de Nanteuil, Universite de Louvain, Belgium

Ravi Palat, State University of New York, Binghamton, USA

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Miranda Schreurs, Freie Universitat Berlin,  Germany

Stuart Shields, go Radice, University of Leeds, UK

Josep Ramoneda, journalist and philosopher, Spain

University of Manchester, UK

Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, University of Sheffield, UK

Eleni Varikas,  Universite Paris 8, France

Hayden White, Stanford University, USA

Paul Zarembka, University of Buffalo, USA

Slavoj Zizek, Ljubljana, Slovenia