Ankara bombing: police chiefs sacked, but no news on the missing
The Turkish government say that 97 people were killed in the bombing, but﻿ locals put the number at 128.  The difference lies in those that are dead, but unrecognisable and undergoing DNA analysis.  For the relations of the missing the issue is Kafkaesque, as the hospitals are forced by the Secrecy Act not to make any disclosures to the public, whether they are family members or not.  With the General Election but a couple of weeks away, there is a growing fear that the Government will continue to distort the truth and evidence of the police tear-gassing the bombed crowd in Ankara only serves to increase public fury. Whilst there are still no claimants as to responsibility for the bombing, the government's line points clearly at ISIS.

International news agencies are reporting the Ankara bombing in a very neutral tone. Since non-Turkish speakers cannot read what is written on Twitter, which is our only remaining means of communication, it is difficult for them to know the reaction caused by these bombs. Hundreds of thousands of people are sharing messages like these:

“God damn you!”

“I am losing my mind.”

“I can no longer bear the lies.”

“I am ashamed of being alive.”

This is what they are most angry about: just a day before the peace rally, an ultra-nationalist group held a demonstration in the home town of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. At this demonstration – where nobody’s nose even bled – a banner was unfurled: “I stand with you, Master!”

“Master” is a nickname given to the president by his sympathisers. The leader who had his name written on the banner took to the podium and addressed thousands with these words: “If Tayyip Erdoğan leaves, Turkey would lose … Blood will flow in streams!”

And now people on Twitter think this bomb attack was conducted by those who hold the same views, under the protection of the ruling power.

They get angry at the justice minister’s smirk as he refutes “any security gap” when in fact the bombs exploded close to an interior ministry building and the headquarters of the Turkish national intelligence organisations. But what makes them furious is the statement by official authorities implying that Kurds carried out the attack themselves in order to seem like the victims.

Police in Diyarbakir on 11 October use teargas and water cannon to disperse people marching to protest about the bombing in Ankara. Photograph: Sertac Kayar/Reuters

And yet another thing that makes them angry is the fact that the government line will be the only point of view they’ll hear. Television channels and newspapers critical of the government will be silenced. They are certain their voice will not be heard. After all, those who are not loyal to the government in this country are considered either terrorists or nonexistent.

If I didn’t live in Turkey and was only interested in big stories, I would ask myself this question: “Didn’t that nation revolt just two years ago to protect a park in Istanbul? Why don’t they take to streets now more than a hundred people are dead?”

Protesters are seeking a way. They saw how even children who were killed by a teargas canister fired by police during the Gezi protests were labelled terrorists.

The masses attending the president’s election rallies booed the family of 14-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died after he was hit by a gas canister.

Since that period and similar ones that followed, insurrectionists have been at a loss for words; their minds paralysed in the face of such cruelty and hatred.

The Psychiatrists’ Association says the use of antidepressants has increased 160% in the last nine years

For days, the most shared phrase on Twitter was that of Turkish writer Tezer Özlü, as she reacted to targeting of leftists during the 70s: “This is not our land, but the land of those that want to kill us.”

After the Gezi protests, people talked about the necessity of forming “neighbourhood resistance committees”. And then people were detained one by one because of a tweet they were accused of writing.

Under such immense pressure, those who protested in Gezi channelled their energy into the single remaining democratic opportunity: the general elections of 7 June.

Turkey’s biggest civil initiative, Vote and Beyond (Oy ve Ötesi), was established with the aim of encouraging participation in the elections and increasing awareness about the candidates, thereby ensuring transparency. With this initiative, Turkey’s well-educated citizens were deployed to monitor each and every ballot box, witnessing the voting process. A nation had to count its own votes because they didn’t trust the state.

Those who focused on the election results while ignoring the violence and the injustice were left disappointed. Disappointed because the president, ignoring regular practice, tasked only the AKP to form government – as a result of which no government came about.

‘After the Gezi protests, people talked about the necessity of forming ‘neighbourhood resistance committees’. And then people were detained one by one because of a tweet they were accused of writing.’ Photograph: Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images

And the organs designed to stop such unlawful practice – the judiciary, executive and legislature – were under the control of the government thanks to their previous political manoeuvres. In short, there was no one left to hold up a stop sign.

The only political arena left outside of government interference was the streets. But they were subject to anti-terror laws and unlimited state violence.

Everyone was already on edge, waiting for the repeat elections on 1 November. President Erdoğan, acting as if he were the natural leader of the government, had been saying the country would be driven to chaos if the AKP wasn’t elected with a clear majority.

And soon after he uttered those words, bombs started exploding. Pro-government activists blatantly threatened people and newspaper offices were attacked. It was as if a country was being held hostage in exchange for a political party’s grip on power.

Since June, Turkey has been living under a “blackmail democracy”, something no one has ever experienced before.

Nowadays, if you sit at any table in Turkey, the complaint is the same: “Such horrible cruelty is beyond me. I don’t know how to feel. I guess I am going mad.” The Psychiatrists’ Association says the use of antidepressants has increased 160% in the last nine years. Perhaps this is because Turkey resembles a child, beaten every day by his father and waking up to another beating with the father asking, “Why are you hitting yourself?” The father adds in a creepy compassionate tone: “If you do not obey me fully, you will carry on beating yourself every night.”

Saturday’s bombs exploded in the heart of this maddening “blackmail democracy”.