Property, Dispossession, and Citizenship in Turkey; Or, the History of the Gezi Uprising Starts in the Surp Hagop Armenian Cemetery

Abstract

In June 2013, the Turkish government's plans for transforming a central park in Istanbul into a shopping mall started as merely another instance of the ongoing urbicide overseen by the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP), but it produced an unexpected outcome. The courageous activism of a thousand members of small-size opposition groups eventually triggered the revolt of tens of thousands of people and the occupation of the park for weeks (D. Özgür 2013). 1 The toll of what became internationally known as the Gezi uprising included eight deaths and thousands of serious injuries resulting from the police's unbridled use of tear gas and plastic bullets. Amid the roar of chants reverberating day and night across the park during its occupation in June 2013, a key historical fact remained but a barely audible whisper: the occupied park once stood adjacent to an Armenian church with a cemetery spread Property, Dispossession, and

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