Turkey has announced plans to purchase 100,000 gas bomb cartridges and launch a central cyber security agency, local media report. This comes after protests across the country which also saw a series of attacks on government’s websites.
The order for the 100,000 new cartridges will be accompanied by
an order for 60 water cannon vehicles, the daily local newspaper
Milliyet reported, also stating that the excessive use of gas
bomb cartridges meant that Turkish riot police used up some
130,000 units across the space of a mere 20 days.
The protests began in Istanbul, but nationwide demonstrations
shortly followed suit, drawing thousands in support of the Gezi
Park protesters suffering brutal police repressions. In one of
the instances, a horrifying video emerged of a man in a
wheelchair being fired at by a similar vehicle on June 11.
“The excessive use of force by the police has turned this
issue into a security one,” said Galip Dalay, a research
assistant with the SETA foundation.
At the same time, Turkish Transport, Maritime Affairs and
Communications Binali Yildirim announced the formation of a new
cyber security agency on Thursday. He declared "The Center for
Response to National Cyber Threats," (or USOM) was to be founded
on the grounds that cyber-attacks during the Gezi Park protests
were a global threat and “likely to increase.”
At the beginning of June, Anonymous hacking group launched
#OpTurkey, which took down the Turkish President’s website, along
with that of the country’s ruling party, in support of
anti-government protests.
Another mid-June attack on over 225 tourist, library, and private
business websites was blamed on Kurdish group ColdHackers.
On Thursday, Turkish hacker group Redhack claimed responsibility
for all tweets relating to the Gezi protests after the launching
of an investigation into some 5 million Gezi Park tweets was
announced by the AKP (Justice and Development Party).
“We have posted all tweets and hacked thousands of people’s
computers. Don’t take on the innocent ones, we are here,”
Redhack wrote on its Twitter account, going on to say that any
accounts that appeared to play a role in the organization of
resistance were to re-tweet their message, and those that
did had been hacked by the group.
Following the claim of responsibility, Twitter users began to
announce that they were hacked by Redhack using the hashtag
#wewerehackedbyredhack.
After 29 people’s houses were raided and they were subsequently
detained for tweets related to the protests on June 5, the group
recommended that “users can tell the police that their account
was hacked by Redhack. We would take the blame with pleasure.”
Social media activists had been accused of using Twitter to
“instigate public hatred and animosity,” according to Turkish
media.
PM Erdogan even blamed social media for the unrest stating
“there is now a menace which is called Twitter,” in the
midst of the upheaval, dismissing the protests as being organized
by extreme societal elements. “The best examples of lies can be
found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society,”
he said.
Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım stressed however on June 19
that the government was working to “fight against cyber-crime,
not to regulate social media,” with Deputy PM Bülent Arınç adding
that people were free to communicate on social media but should
be deterred from encouraging crime or violence.
As the protests have continued to draw support across the
country, the Turkish government have used increasingly
retaliatory measures against anyone involved in protests,
culminating in threats to deploy the armed forces on Tuesday, the
day after using tear gas and water cannons to disperse Monday’s
demonstrators. Over 130 were arrested on Thursday alone, and six
people have died to date as a result of the unrest, which is not
scaling down despite authorities halting proposed renovations of
Gezi Park.
“They’ve left branches hanging off trees and water and debris
all over the streets” said RT’s Tom Barton in Ankara on
Thursday.
Peaceful demonstrations began on May 28 when a group of
environmentalists gathered together to campaign against the
proposed development of a shopping mall in Istanbul
neighborhood’s only remaining park – Gezi Park – next to Taksim
Square. The violent suppression after Erdogan announced that he
had already made his decision motivated thousands nationwide to
display their solidarity.