Today when we arrived in Taksim square it became clear pretty clear that *something* was going on. The question was what? There was an tank right in front of where our bus stopped. Half of the lanes of traffic we blocked. There were more police buses then I had every seen before. As I continued to walk along I noticed police on top of building with their guns (we laughingly referred to it as the police fashion show), there were two to three times as many police out as would be normal for the typical Sunday protest, and the police were holding their guns in such a way that implied an eminent shooting. Despite all of this I never did see anything that warranted such a large show of force. There was rumor that there had been a bomb threat (turned out to be just that, a rumor) but things weren't blocked off that much. Turns out (at least as far as I can tell) that the opposition party to the ruling party had requested a protest, been turned down by the government, and claimed they would hold the protest anyways. The police show was to keep them from being able to do so. I have to say that if they had shown up, I'm pretty sure the police would have been fairly successful. They were stationed at the top of every side street, periodically along Istiklal, armed with gas and guns. It could have turned ugly. Thankfully it didn't. Just another peaceful day with a large show of force.
