Be very careful when it comes to issues about Turkey. There is a very interesting and subtle social media campaign backed by yet to be seen figures who are making this a much bigger/disingenious issue than it really is. The interesting facts you should realise are that Erdogan and his political party won the last three elctions, increasing their support by about 3 - 5% each round. Their last win saw them secure 49.4% of the vote, which means over three terms of power they've actually increased their support base by 15%.

So why are there protests?

Well theyre not about a tree unsurprisingly. There are 3 political factions who have subverted the initial protest, the BDP, CHP and TKP parties which are socialist, communist, secular or a combination of them (TKP being the most extreme).

Surprisingly, these three parties were recently holding protest against Erdogans decision to allow refugees from Syria to enter Turkey. Yes, the three parties who are apparantly looking after the wellbeing of trees in a park don't want refugees of war entering Turkey (though no one mentiosn the fact that these three parties also support Assad because the Baath party is/was communist and secular too).

Theres also the DHKP which is an extremist communist (terrorist?) party which hates the fact that the leader of Turkey is a practising Muslim and that Islam is seeing a revival in Turkey.

So try to read between the lines and see that theres more to the story than trees. Redditors and HN folks seem to be falling hook line and sinker for a fantastic marketing astro turfing campaign.

Just a few more pointers. During erdogans reign he improved the minimum wage by 500%, allowed farmers to access capital at a 5% interest rate as opposed to the initial 54% and paid off the last installment towards the IMF freeing them of all their debts. For the first time in modern era, Turkey now owes no money to the IMF and is the 15th largets economy in the world.

Turkey does have problems, but theres more to this story that meets the eye and people need to wonder why and how this has blown up so successfully on social media sites.