On April 23, 2025, a earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 rocked Istanbul in Turkiye. The capital city is located on what’s known as the Anatolian fault line, the boundary where the Eurasian and Anatolian tectonic plates meet. As such, residents of Istanbul are familiar with earthquake risks. Only two years prior, a 7.8 magnitude shook the southern and southeastern provinces of the country causing widespread damage and killing approximately 53,000 people.
Early after the most recent earthquake, Istanbul’s governor Davut Gul reported at least 151 people were injured as a result of the earthquake and from jumping from heights to escape. However, numbers continued to rise, and at least 236 people have been treated for injuries.
Ali Yerlikaya, the interior minister, said the earthquake lasted for approximately 13 seconds and was subsequently followed by upwards of 100 aftershocks that measured up to 5.9 in magnitude.
Authorities have warned citizens to avoid entering buildings, after receiving 378 reports of structural damage. As a result, citizens have been left to gather in public spaces including parks and gardens. “In line with the need for safe space, our school gardens are open to the use of all our citizens,” said Education Minister Yusuf Tekin.
As displaced citizens gather, one park has a particular history worth revisiting and offers critical lessons as to why urban green spaces are key in the face of crisis.
“What did the trees we protect do?,” reads Instagram post by Postmodeern, a Turkish Lawgroup. “People started to pitch tents in Gezi Park due to the earthquake concern…The place where we fought our struggle; became the safest place,” continues the post.
The post refers to the unique history of Gezi Park, which in 2013 became an emblem of peaceful democratic resistance.
On May 30, 2013, over a hundred environmentalists gathered in Istanbul’s Gezi Park located near the Taksim Square. They were met with brutal police force. Two days prior, protestors first clashed with police after several trees were cut down. The park acted as one of the last remaining green spaces in central Istanbul where newly proposed urban planning would see it redeveloped into a shopping centre.
In the days that followed, thousands of protestors took to the streets of Istanbul and by June 2013 thousands more across the country had participated in what is known as the Gezi Park protests.
Protests were emboldened by government authorities who rebuked activists, dismissed the concerns of protesters and attempted to deny peaceful protest. Police violence and the widespread use of tear gas, water cannons, plastic bullets and beatings further outraged protestors, who had been demonstrating their democratic right to peaceful protest.
Although originally an environmental concern, the Gezi protests came to represent a challenge to an increasingly authoritarian government, one that did not concern itself with the consultation of its constituents. As a result, the Gezi Park protests, mobilized and assembled a diverse group of social actors, whom would have otherwise been engaged in differing arenas of identity politics. These included but were not limited to, environmentalists, LGBTQ+ groups, Alevis, anti-capitalist Muslim groups, Kurds to Armenians and the middle class to blue collar workers.
President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been actively destroying Istanbul’s green spaces and wider forested areas in alignment with the AKP’s economic development plan.
In response to the protests Turkiye’s president, continually attempted to frame the Gezi Park Protests as a Alevis revolt. Alevi, describes the large number of Muslim Shi’a and constitutes Turkiye’s largest religious minority group. The Alevis have a history of prosecution within the country, most recently the notable 1978 massacre during which upwards of 100 Kurdish Alevi’s were killed and more than 500 were injured by neo-fascist groups.
However, despite political attempts to frame the Gezi Park Protests as Alevi revolt, protestors of all backgrounds continued to assert their democratic right to peaceful protest. Violence was regularly used against protestors. In addition to a large number of protesters arrested, journalists reporting on the protests, doctors treating the injured and lawyers defending peaceful protest were also subject to arrest. As a result, approximately 4,900 remained in detention.
“You will clean up the square. You will clean up the statue. After that, you will clean up Gezi Park. They ask: who gave the order to the police? I did. I did. Yes. Were we supposed to sit and watch the forces of occupation? Were we supposed to wait until the whole world would join in and celebrate?”
– Prime Minister addressing a rally of Justice and Development Party (AKP) supporters on June 24, 2013.
A significant legacy of injury resulted from police violence used against protestors. On July 15, the Turkish medical association reported more than 8,000 injuries and by the end of August at least 5 had died. Notably, seven out of the eight total youth protestors who died were Alevi. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to govern the country.
As a result of their protest and sacrifice, Gezi Park, and its trees, remain today. Underneath Postmodeern’s post is a constellation of comments that remember those who initially stood for the park. One comment asserts “young people and children sacrificing their lives for the tourist park, Rights, Law, Justice” another states “A thousand salutes to the fallen and the ones fighting. The park resistance is a folk legend!”
Gezi Park continues to serve as a gathering place for the public, especially in times of crisis and in the face of governmental abandonment.
The tensions surrounding Gezi Park, and parks like it continue to unfold in the aftermath of the earthquake. Another post on social media shows police confronting citizens taking shelter post earthquake in public parks. One commenter says in response that “people are afraid of earthquakes; the government is afraid of the people.”
Maren Savarese Knopf is an emerging interdisciplinary scholar and PhD student at UNB. Originally from Treaty 4, she now resides on lands guided by the Wabanaki Confederacy.
