Half of the protesters at the Gezi park demonstrations were women.
But after the building became festooned with protest banners during the Gezi Park demonstrations, Biennial organizers never got a response from the Turkish Culture Ministry about their request, Ms. Erdemci said.
Most of the defendants are members of the Taksim Solidarity Platform, an umbrella group of activists that was at the forefront of the Gezi Park demonstrations which engulfed Turkey two years ago.
On Saturday, internet-freedom activists took their anger to Istanbul's Taksim Square, the epicenter of last year's Gezi Park demonstrations.
The student believed that Monday's METU rally shared the same impetus that animated the Gezi Park demonstrations: "environmental concern serving as a lightning rod for wider political and social dissent".
She may have been able to hear crowds outside chanting: "Park Geun-hye, get out of the house!" and "Come down and go to jail!" Kim Hye-in, a demonstrator who was attending her sixth anti-Park demonstration, said impeachment was just a first step.
Massive anti-Park demonstrations held in recent weeks have called for a new era of cleaner politics and for whoever becomes the next president to force the country's family-run chaebol conglomerates to be more transparent and accountable.
After riot police used tear gas and water cannon to clear the park, the demonstrations mushroomed, with thousands of people protesting in Taksim Square, and solidarity protests around the country.
After calling in the National Guard, the Guard remained in Berkeley for 17 days, camping in People's Park, and demonstrations subsided as the University removed cordoned-off fencing and placed all development plans for People's Park on hold.
But the authorities have named three city parks where demonstrations, in theory, will be allowed.
