Joan Baez expresses support for Turkish protesters by interpreting 'Imagine'

ISTANBUL

Baez was an icon of the civil rights protests and the anti-Vietnam war movement during the sixties in the United States. She has since been vocal in other movements for rights and freedoms all over the world.

America's rebel folksinger who was once an icon of a generation, Joan Baez, has expressed her support for the ongoing protest movement in Turkey, interpreting John Lennon's classic "Imagine" in an intimate YouTube video.

Baez, who was present in every major civil protest of her time with her guitar and voice - from the March on Washington to the 1989's Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia - did not stay indifferent to the demands of the Turkish protesters.

"I wish to express my support to Turkish citizens, lawyers, doctors, kids, families, students in your courageous peaceful fight to preserve the heart of your culture, the beauty of your land and the soul of your people," she said in a message delivered in English and Turkish at the beginning of the video.

"Your voices are being heard everywhere," she assured, before singing the song that marked an era.

Joan Baez is not the first foreign name to show her open support to the Gezi Park protesters. Intellectuals such as the American linguist Noam Chomsky and the Sloven philosopher Slavoj Zizek also expressed their support at the beginning of the protests, which have now entered their fourth week. Many prominent Turkish artists are also intimately involved in the demonstrations.