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Turkey protest: Anti-government clashes spread | |
(about 4 hours later) | |
Police have clashed with protesters in the Turkish capital Ankara and in Istanbul, on the second day of unrest initially sparked by plans to build a shopping centre on a city park. | |
Thousands of people packed into Istanbul's Taksim Square, near the Gezi Park, after police pulled out. | |
But the unrest then moved to the upmarket Besiktas district, where police fired tear gas and water cannon. | |
Officials said more than 90 protests had taken place across Turkey. | |
A total of 939 people had been arrested, the Interior Ministry said, as demonstrations took place in towns and cities including Antalya, Izmir and Konya. | |
Dozens of injures have been reported. | |
These are the largest anti-government protests in Turkey for years. | |
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said police had made "mistakes" in the force they have used, but has called for an end to the Istanbul protests. | |
He said Taksim Square "cannot be an area where extremists are running wild". | |
Police withdraw | |
The protesters say Gezi Park in Istanbul is one of the few green spaces left in Istanbul, and that the government is ignoring their appeals for it be saved. | |
Their protest began with a small number of people staging a sit-in in the park at the start of the week. | |
On Friday, clashes broke out as police fired tear gas to try to clear them out. | |
Correspondents say that the protest has spiralled into widespread anti-government unrest and anger over the perceived "Islamisation" of Turkey. | |
The perception that police have been heavy-handed, a view adopted by many of the country's mainstream media, has also fuelled the unrest. | |
On Saturday, in a defiant speech to the exporters' union, Mr Erdogan said the plan to rebuild an Ottoman era military barracks on the Gezi Park site would go ahead as planned. | |
Referring to protesters fears that the site was destined to be a shopping centre, he said one "might be built on the ground floor or a city museum" but that this had not yet been decided. | |
But he also admitted there had been "some mistakes, extremism in police response", and that the authorities were investigating. | |
In an apparent bid to reduce tension, police and riot vehicles were withdrawn from the square on Saturday afternoon, and barricades removed, allowing thousands of people to enter the square and demonstrate. | |
One protester, Koray Caliskan, told the BBC people felt "victorious". | |
"This is the first time in Turkey's political history that a million people moved into Taksim Square to claim their public park," he said. | |
Another protester, Oral Goktas, told Reuters the protest had become one "against the government, against Erdogan taking decisions like a king". | |
The scene in the central square appeared to be peaceful, with protesters chanting slogans, dancing, waving banners and calling for the government to resign. | |
However the violent scenes then moved to the upmarket Besiktas area of the city, close to the Istanbul offices of the prime minister. | |
Police in Besiktas fired tear gas to hold back protesters, some of whom were throwing stones or cobbles. | |
The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil in Istanbul says the mood changed as darkness fell, and that the largely young crowd appeared to be growing increasingly agitated. | |
Similar clashes were seen on the streets of the capital, from where video footage emerged which appeared to show a group of protesters being run over by a water cannon vehicle. | |
Foreign concern | Foreign concern |
Mr Erdogan has accused his opponents of using the anger over the Gezi Park issue to stoke up tensions. | |
The prime minister has been in power since 2002 and some in Turkey have complained that his government is becoming increasingly authoritarian. | |
His ruling AK Party has its roots in political Islam, but he says he is committed to Turkey's state secularism. | His ruling AK Party has its roots in political Islam, but he says he is committed to Turkey's state secularism. |
The US has expressed concern over Turkey's handling of the protests and Amnesty International condemned the police's tactics, saying: "The use of violence by police on this scale appears designed to deny the right to peaceful protest altogether and to discourage others from taking part." | |
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