Last night, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to Istanbul following a week of protests that have rocked the country.
If anyone was expecting a conciliatory tone, they were disappointed.
Addressing a crowd of his supporters, Erdogan said "These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now."
Referring to the thousands of protestors in Istanbul's central Taksim Square, Erdogan's supporters chanted "Let us go,
let's crush Taksim."
There is now
a serious threat of violence directed against the peaceful protests in which our brothers and sisters in the Turkish trade union movement are playing such an important role.
LabourStart's campaign, launched at the request of the
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Turkish trade union confederation
DISK, has gotten unprecedented levels of support. We have already sent over 14,300 messages to Erdogan.
Global unions such as
IndustriALL and the
IUF have strongly supported our campaign.
But we must intensify our campaign -- and today,
every minute matters.
There are 70,000 of you receiving this message who have not yet sent off your message to Erdogan --
please do so now.
To the 11,000 of you on this list who have already supported the campaign -- thank you. But let's not stop there.
- If your local or branch union has a mailing list, can you pleaseemail all the members and tell them how it important it is that their voices be heard today?
- If you are a national official of a union, I appeal to you to email all your members today, urging them to sign up to the campaign.
14,300 messages are helping to get Erdogan's attention. He has already ranted about "foreign interference".
Our brothers and sisters in Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere are in the streets and squares of Turkey's cities today. The protests continue.
They are counting on our support. Let's not let them down.
Eric Lee
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