Toma

The Astor movie theater will be hosting screenings during the afternoons through November, with two different films each week - most of which have premiered in Greece.

A man hit by a water cannon security vehicle (TOMA) died in Istanbul's Beyo?lu district on May 1, Do?an News Agency reported.

The 57-year-old Nail Mavu? was hit by a TOMA while crossing the street in the Tarlaba?? area of Beyo?lu, near Taksim Square.  

The heavily wounded Mavu? was taken to a hospital in Istanbul's ?i?li district, where he succumbed to his wounds. 

Istanbul is set to mark May 1, International Workers' Day, in a different venue than the contested and symbolic Taksim Square due to security concerns, with this year's celebrations to be held in the Bak?rköy bazaar area amid tight security measures.

A legal investigation has revealed the identity of the police officer who shot the youngest victim of the Gezi Park protests, 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, almost three years after a tear gas canister that fatally injured Elvan was fired on June 2013. 

Turkey's Council of State has annulled a former ruling of an Istanbul administrative court which barred reconstruction projects in Istanbul's Beyo?lu district, providing the legal ground for projects such as a plan to construct a mosque, shopping mall and multi-story building in the historical neighborhood. 

A police officer that gained notoriety for spraying pepper spray at peaceful protesters, including an academic who became known as the ?woman in red? during the outset of the Gezi Park uprising in 2013, has been sentenced to 20 months in jail and ordered to plant 600 trees.

It is a photo that has come to symbolize the spirit of the Gezi protests that rocked Turkey at the beginning of June 2013. A man holding a banner from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), a forerunner of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the search for Kurdish rights, leads what appears to be a woman holding an Atatürk flag away from a police attack in Taksim.

It was as if there was an undeclared curfew. Early in the morning [May 31], Istanbul police closed down all major roads leading to Gezi Park, the sparking point of the 2013 nationwide anti-government protests. Why? The obsessive majoritarian government of the elected neo-sultan did not want people gather and remember the nine young sons of this country who fell victim to brutal governance.

Taksim Square and Gezi Park, in addition to numerous other roads and streets, have been closed to the public on the second anniversary of the anti-government Gezi protests which spread across Turkey in protest at decisions taken under then-PM Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's leadership. 

Painter Haydar Özay, the son of the 21-year gardener of Istanbul's Gezi Park, has spent his life there. He has recently finished a huge, 50-square meter painting of the park, which will be on view from May 30, the second anniversary of the Gezi protests.