This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, June 9th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

When the Cato Institute's Mustafa Aquio watches protests unfold in the United States, he's reminded of a similar time in

Turkey the protests there were simply known as Gezzy Park and they didn't exactly

work out as protesters would have hoped. He believes there are clear

lessons for American protesters. We spoke this week. What is going on in

Minneapolis, in Louisville, in cities across the United States in response to in unarmed people where police did not have a justifiable cause of action.

This is nominally the reason why people are out there protesting. You saw something similar in Turkey seven years ago. You were there for it. So

describe to me what was Ghese Park? Well the Ghese Park protests as they're called in Turkey, was probably the biggest social protest movement in the history of Turkey, modern day Turkey.

And it was again a reaction to a police action, some excess, some wrongdoing of the police and it just triggered and that triggered it and just

turn into a nationwide protest against the government the system if you will so there are

some similarities that I see there of course there are some similarities that I see there. Of course there are some

differences too. I mean the killing of George Floyd was an unimaginable

brutality and it was really, really evil.

What triggered the Gisey Park protest was something less tragic.

I mean, it was police gassing a group of peaceful environmentalists protesters in the park.

And I think in the United States there is 400 years of slavery and discrimination against

African Americans, so there's a deeper history there.

In Turkey, you could argue that the Gazipark

protests were against a government whose authoritarian colors were becoming

visible but you can speak of a deep history there as well.

On the other hand, there are lessons from what happened. I mean, in Turkey, these Geese-Gezipar protests went for about a month,

...