ANTAKYA, Turkey — The sentiment in Antakya’s Arab Alawite community is that anyone joining the protests risks their lives. The mood in this city is tense, and the tension does not promise to dissipate anytime soon.

On Monday, Sept. 9, the Alawite youth in the Armutlu neighborhood gathered in support of the protest in Antakya, where Middle East Technical University (METU) students boycotted a government road project that aims to cut down around 3,000 trees to construct a highway in their campus' vicinity, as well as to reinforce their demand that the state find those responsible for the deaths of Abdullah Comert, 22, and Ali Ihsan Korkmaz, 19. Both were members of the Arab Alawite community in Hatay, and they died in June while protesting to save the trees at Gezi Park in  Istanbul. 

An innocent protest such as this week’s, too, however, turned deadly. Ahmet Atakan, 22, died Monday night, aggravating an already fragile community. In the heat of the moment, people accused the police of being directly responsible for his death. Speculation mounted that he was struck by a police tear gas canister. Ahmet’s father, Ali Atakan, told reporters yesterday [Sept. 10], on the day of the funeral, “The police who are praised as heroes have killed our son.” His mother, Emsal Atakan, cried out, “Recep, what’ve you done?” — a reference to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

But local television cameraman Zahi Unsaldi’s coincidental footage of the moment of Atakan’s death provided undisputable evidence that Atakan died not by police force but by falling from a three- or four-story building. While this still requires a thorough police investigation, his uncle Nevzat Atakan appeared on that local Akdeniz TV’s broadcast last night, and said, “We are now convinced that he died of falling from that building.” This was also an act of responsible behavior by the family in an attempt to de-escalate the tension in this community here.