Riot police clear Turkey park demo

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16 June 2013

Protesters have set up barricades in Istanbul's streets after Turkish riot police cleared out the occupation of a park at the centre of the strongest challenge to prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 10-year tenure.

For more than two weeks, protesters had flouted Mr Erdogan's warnings to vacate the area around the city's Taksim Square.

As dusk fell on Saturday, hundreds of white-helmeted riot police swept through Taksim Square and Gezi Park, firing canisters of tear gas as they stormed through the tents set up throughout the park.

Thousands of protesters, choking on the fumes and stumbling among the tents, put up little physical resistance, even as plain-clothes police manhandled many of them from the park.

The protests began as an environmental sit-in to prevent a development project at Gezi Park, but have quickly spread to dozens of cities and spiralled into a broader expression of discontent about what many say is Mr Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian decision-making.

The prime minister denies the charge, pointing to his strong support base which allowed him to win his third consecutive term with 50% of the vote in 2011.

As police cleared the square, many protesters fled into nearby hotels for shelter. A stand-off developed at one hotel on the edge of the park, where police opened up with water cannon against protesters and journalists outside before releasing tear gas at the entrance, filling the lobby with white smoke. At other hotels, plain-clothes policemen turned up outside, urging the protesters to come out.

Some protesters ran off into nearby streets, setting up makeshift barricades and running from water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets into Sunday. Plumes of white tear gas could be seen rising from the streets.

As news of the raid broke, thousands of people from other parts of Istanbul gathered and were attempting to reach Taksim. Television footage showed riot police firing tear gas on a highway and bridge across the Bosphorus to prevent protesters from heading to the area.

Demonstrations also erupted in other cities. In Ankara, at least 3,000 people swarmed into John F Kennedy street, where opposition party legislators sat down at the front of the crowd facing the riot police - not far from Parliament. In Izmir, thousands of people converged at a seafront square.

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