Our resistance that began with the intention to stop the slaughter of Gezi Park’s trees went beyond the park’s borders and joined the anger felt by the people in Istanbul and across Turkey against JDP government’s 11 year rule. Millions of people on the streets completed 18 days of resistance without giving up on their legitimacy and creativity.

This resistance, which takes its place in history as the biggest struggle for rights that our country has ever witnessed, has been the target of intense police violence since the first day. We are in a process where all human rights, including the right to live, are being trampled on. But this attitude has enlarged the crowds rather than dispersing them, has strengthened the solidarity among people who got to know each other in this struggle, has filled the streets where gas bombs suffocated all living creatures to stand against violence, has united the resistance.

At first, the government ignored the clear and legitimate demands put forward at the outset of the resistance. Then they tried to divide, provoke, and delegitimize the resistance. But these efforts failed as they drew public opinion reactions from our country and across the world.

As a consequence of this violence over the course of these 18 days, 4 fellow countrymen, Ethem Sarısülük, Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, Abdullah Cömert, and Mustafa Sarı lost their lives. Many citizens were injured and lost their sight, hearing, and extremities. We feel the pain of the lives’ lost in our hearts and remind that they were killed while demanding basic human rights. We once again express the fact that a serious investigation of the responsible parties has not commenced and that we will follow through until those responsible are held accountable for this violence in front of the law. Furthermore, many people are still being held in custody because of arbitrary detainments. As Taksim Solidarity, we demand the immediate release of all citizens who are detained and arrested for their participation in the resistance and the demonstrations across Turkey.

In this process, we have seen that we can unite in the richness of our differences, discuss, join, and strive together despite the politics of violence. Millions of people claimed their freedom by defending their trees against the economic rent and ecological destruction that this government rose on and sustained their non-violent stance as a space for freedom against violence.

After Gezi Park demonstrations, the country has now “woken up to a new day.”

Fostering this struggle, not ending it, is a prerequisite. The struggle’s massiveness, creative intelligence, legal legitimacy, femininity, and youthfulness have ensured its success till today and are the guarantees for the next steps.

A top-down management and action through orders are not options for a social movement that has changed the fate of this country with its determination and upright stance in a climate where allegiance is forced upon everyone. This sensitivity must go forward through forums and assessment meetings and by accepting differing opinions as richness.

All democratic mechanisms are important and valuable but it is also significant that all persons and institutions who contribute to this solidarity must act with historical consciousness and take into account the solidarity’s accumulations and gains.

This is why the real agenda of all Taksim Solidarity constituents on 15 June 2013 is the demands that wehave persistently put forth since the first day. The insistence on following through with these demands is also an effort to diffuse the authoritarian climate in which our fellow countrymen live.

To those who ask us what we plan on doing: we are not leaving Gezi Park, which has now become a symbol. We, all those who labored, will decide on the next steps and on how we will stay in Gezi Park- government spokesmen declared “Gezi Park will remain a park until the court’s ruling.” We will strengthen our solidarity through democratic discussions and assessment mechanisms in line with today’s gains.

Persevering against police violence which blocked entrance to Gezi Park and resisting for days on the streets, the role resisters played cannot be underestimated and there is nothing more natural than them showing this with their own colors. But in a broad assessment, what has emerged from discussion platforms is the inclination that the park stay should continue within the umbrella of “Taksim Solidarity” and that the channels for all persons, institutions, parties, and initiatives to express themselves be created.

In the 18^th day of our resistance, on Saturday 15 June, as Taksim Solidarity, we continue to guard our park and our lives for all the living creatures, our park, our city, our trees, our living spaces, our privacy, our freedom, and our future. We continue to follow through with our demands. We will not be quiet until the people who gave the orders for violence and who caused our 4 fellow countrymen’s death are brought to trial. This resistance will be a unified foundation for the reflection of Taksim Solidarity’s collective will and cooperative struggle. From today onwards, with the dynamism of our struggle across our country and the world, we will continue our solidarity against all injustices in our country.

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING, CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE!

TAKSIM SOLIDARITY