May 1st was the international Labor Day, and in Taksim, a neighborhood near our host’s apartment, there is often unrest and demonstrations on the holiday. While the past several years have apparently been fairly mild, there has been a lot of anti-government sentiment over the past year. Much of it has been directed at plans to raze Gezi Park, near Taksim Square, to build a shopping mall. People assembled at the square to protest the plans, and the police responded forcefully, resulting in several deaths. This year, partially in response to the deaths and the force shown by the state, people were prepared to hold demonstrations on May Day; the government was also prepared, sending in almost 40,000 police officers and shutting down most of the streets around Taksim and other areas where protests were likely.

It is deeply upsetting to see such strong-armed actions by the government. At the end of the street where we were staying, a crowd assembled, and then police ran down the street and fired canisters of tear gas. Earlier in the day, some police officers made me delete pictures that I took on my camera. And online, you can feel the government’s presence — youtube is blocked, and Twitter was recently blocked (our host said that the sites were being used to show government corruption, so the government shut them down).

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