‘Let Your Bird Sing’ – Turkey’s Crack Down On Social Media.
Since recent government elections in March 2014, current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing party, the Justice and Development party (AK) gained another win by 45%, despite much speculation amongst the younger generations of Turkey.
Due to a leaked audio video revealing private consultations of the Prime Minister and his son Bilal, regarding matters which many are accusing as evidence of corruption within the government, Edrogan has had to deal with numerous events of civil unrest, protest and harassment. Thus, he blocked social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter to prevent the circulation of the incriminating material.
Istanbul resident Caglar Polat (known to his friends as Charlie) and former postgraduate masters student in database engineering at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK, explains the grief and frustration suffered by the younger generations in Turkey: “ Government block social media because they want the public not to communicate and organize each other against the government.” He goes on to describe the prime minister as a “professional scammer and puppet of the USA”, “he wants to block social media in order to cover his outrageousness. I, and most of the people, believe that the government manipulates the votes! It is illogical and unfair.”
From an opposite perspective, English Ba Business Management student Kihanna Millarn, 20, is studying for a year at Istanbul Bigli University. She documents her experiences of living in Istanbul during this time of civil unrest in an online blog, however, uploads these entries in the UK when she returns to her home in Reading during her holidays in order to by pass the Internet restrictions.
As a combat act to this prevention of freedom of speech, young people of Turkey took to the streets to spread their voices through art on the walls. At the time of the Twitter ban, there were numerous accounts of DNS by-pass codes in graffiti in a number of locations across the country’s capital city Ankara as well as Istanbul.
As well as graffiti acting as a silent voice on the streets of Turkey, it is also becoming an area of increasing popularity and fashion amongst contemporary art. This rising art form is prominent throughout the streets of Turkey’s major cities, most notably Istanbul. Luxury Hands, an Istanbul based graffiti group, have turned their creativity into a business and lifestyle, generating art pieces for numerous business for promotional reasons, along with identifying themselves as artists across the city with personal trademark images, such as the giant panda’s by artist Leo Lunatic.
Graffiti styles vary across Istanbul’s city streets, combining cultural society symbols, group society symbols, poignant messages of particular anti-government notions and simply pieces of pure artwork.
The images shown with this article draw a comparative scene of graffiti used in an anti-government way as well as images of current police and citizen turmoil, all joined together on the streets.
