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Sorry - this page has been removed. Turkish police use water cannon on protesters denouncing 'Islamisation' of schools
(4 months later)
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. Turkish police have used water cannon to disperse scores of protesters in the western coastal city of Izmir who were boycotting schools over the growing influence of religion in the classroom.
Education is the latest flashpoint between the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and secularist Turks who accuse him of overseeing creeping Islamisation.
For further information, please contact: Riot police were out in force on Friday, with water cannon being used to disperse demonstrators who had gathered in the city centre, according to pictures from Doğan news agency. At least one person was seen being led away by plain-clothes security officers.
Parts of some regular schools have been requisitioned to create more places for students in Imam Hatip religious schools championed by Erdoğan, where girls and boys are taught separately. Almost a million students are enrolled in those schools, up from 65,000 when Erdoğan’s AKP came to power in 2002.
The boycott was organised in cities across the country by a teachers union and associations from the minority Alevi community, Hürriyet Daily News reported. About 10 people in Istanbul were detained by police, it added. A witness said hundreds of people, mostly students, joined one of the protests in the city.
Turkey was widely condemned in 2013 for the brutal suppression of anti-government protests during which hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets.
Despite deepening polarisation in the country, Erdoğan remains popular with his conservative religious voter base. But there is an increasing sense of hostility in some secularist parts of the population, many of whom are disturbed by a perceived erosion of judicial independence.