Late in the evening of March 8, bulldozers took out more than a hundred ancient oriental plane trees from the gardens of an Ankara theater. Reactions from the public and actors pleaded with the government to await a court's decision. Several hashtags are trending on social media to support that theater in particular, the theater in general, and also condemning the tree “massacre” in the middle of the night.
Dedicated followers of Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse at this point might feel a sense of deja vu, since the Gezi Park protests started as a reaction to the bulldozing of trees in the park in the early morning hours of May 31, 2013. Gezi protesters have reacted to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) administration’s desire for grand commercial projects, razing buildings at the cost of fast diminishing green spaces in the cities.
