A single man has been standing still for hours at Taksim square to protest Turkish government. Others are joining one by one

A man’s single act of defiance in Taksim Square last night has turned into a silent struggle across the country for the right to protest. 

One man, later identified as performance artist Erdem Gündüz, started standing silently around 6 p.m. in the middle of Taksim Square, where police is limiting access following the crackdown on Gezi Park protestors on June 15.

The young man stood in the same place without moving, staring at the flag of modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which is hung on the Atatürk Culture Center (AKM), a scene of the struggle between police and protesters over the last three weeks. 

He was soon joined by a group of around 300 fellow demonstrators, who all came to stand in silence beside him, staring in the same direction. The group included renowned Turkish designer Barbaros Şansal.  

Gündüz, who started the protest, left the scene right before police intervened against the protestors around 2 a.m. today. Ten people, who “insisted on standing” were taken into custody, daily Hürriyet reported on its website.

Gündüz said his protest targeted both the media and the government. “The real violence is not showing what is going on,” the protestor told the BBC’s Turkish service. “Four people have died, there are thousands of wounded but the media, unfortunately, have shown us nothing.”

The government is the main focus of Gündüz’s reaction. “Opening the Taksim square [to pedestrians] as if nothing happened, planting trees in Gezi Park... These are not good intentions,” he was quoted as saying by the BBC.

News of the “standing man” began spreading on social media shortly after the act of defiance began, and the Twitter hashtag #duranadam (“standing man”) quickly became the world’s top Twitter trending topic.

People across the country were quick to pick up the new protests, and hundreds of photos showing people standing still have been shared so far. One photo showed people standing still in the central Anatolian province of Sivas, in front of the Madımak Hotel where 33 intellectuals and two hotel workers died when radical Islamists attacked the hotel on July 2, 1993.