So, what's going on in Turkey?

My facebook has been exploding with posts from Ceren Keysadi - a fellow student at Macalester who lives in Istanbul and who is diligently posting on FB to make up for the lack of coverage in the Turkish media about the recent uprisings. From my understanding, the Turkish people are protesting the governments decision to build (yet another) mall in one of the few remaining parks in rapidly developing Istanbul and the state is responding with crushing force. This is an example of how the Turkish government does not pay attention to their peoples voices, and how authoritarian the government is in their responses to civil unrest. The PM has gone on television to discuss completely unrelated topics and is scheduled to leave on a tour of North Africa tomorrow. In additional to protest in Istanbul, Turkish expats all over the world have held demonstrations and there is also incredible violence occurring in Ankara. There is conflict between the army, the police and the citizenry and the citizens are the ones who are being showered in pepper spray and beaten by the police. People have been leaving out food, water and lemons to help with the pepper spray for protestors - it is at once horrifying to see the violence and inspiring to see the coordination. Again, I know very little about what is going on and next to nothing about Turkish politics - but I guess there's no time to learn like the present, right?
Here is Ceren's post from todays activities:
"made it home safe again on the 3rd day of mass protests. Today we were in front of Haberturk, one of the media channels refusing to report our protests. They also hosted Prime Minister Erdogan today - obviously the crowd lost it. People threw money on the ground asking "How much do we need to pay to buy your live streaming?"... There were even kids at the age of 8-10 dancing with Ataturk flags, shouting at the media group. Our media is sold - No Media still gives extensive report on what's happening. We are following the news either on Twitter or from International Media. Twitter is amazing, yet can be dangerous too because lots of misinformation appears which makes it difficult for us follow the events. Government also uses Twitter to spot our locations, so that they can send the "forces". When I was in Gezi Parki, it was a true celebration - People Dancing, shouting, clapping... They lit candles on the ground on the letters saying "Taksim is ours" . People "cheered" to Erdogan with their beers (last week the Government banned selling of alcohol after 10 pm, banned its advertisement completely which had already infuriated many "MANY" drinkers in Turkey) , questioned what kind of a "man" he is etc. etc. In the meantime, however, Besiktas (the district where Erdogan's office in Dolmabahce Palace is) has been turned upside down again. At the moment, massive conflict is happening as I heard from others. We expect more injuries, if not deaths. #EnoughIsEnough #OccupyGezi"
Some of her other updates: 
"Twitter update: In Adana, policemen have smashed 4 girls to the floor shouting with guns that 'we can kill you this moment, and no one will even notice; better calm down'..."

"Unconfirmed info: Protesters of Besiktas Carsi group have been taken into custody, and are being beaten/tortured in the Beyoglu Police Office. SHARE!"

"Still on the ferry. Will hit Beşiktaş soon. They say orange sprays have been dropped. Pure chemicals those make you paralyzed. And soon FB and Twitter might be shut down too. I will give updates whenever I can. Keep sharing the news! We need international support. #TurkishSpring"

And here are some more links for updated information:
a map
Assad urges the Turkish PM to back down  (oh, ok then)
a blogger from Istanbul
photos on buzzfeed
NYTIMES article
twitter account by americans in turkey
more images