TURKEY: Clashes between protesters and police in Istanbul intensify as mourners buried a teenager wounded in protests last summer

Record ID: 859310

  • Title: TURKEY: Clashes between protesters and police in Istanbul intensify as mourners buried a teenager wounded in protests last summer
  • Date: 12th March 2014
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (MARCH 12, 2014) (REUTERS) BARRICADE ON FIRE PROTESTERS THROWING FIRECRACKERS AT POLICE RIOT POLICE MARCHING PROTESTERS THROWING FIRECRACKERS AT WATER CANNON POLICE FIRING TEAR GAS SMOKE ON STREET WATER CANNON BEING SPRAYING PROTESTERS POLICE DETAINING PROTESTERS WATER CANNON BEING SPRAYING PROTESTERS INJURED MAN BEING CARRIED ON A STRETCHER
  • Embargoed: 27th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • City:
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVATDMXXPKS15P74Q33O2X6O5ZK
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Clashes between protesters and police intensified on Wednesday (March 12) in a protest triggered by the death of a teenager wounded in street clashes last summer.
    Police fired water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets in a major Istanbul avenue to stop tens of thousands of people, chanting anti-government slogans, from reaching the central Taksim square.
    There were similar scenes in the centre of the capital Ankara and in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
    Berkin Elvan was 14 when he got caught up in street battles in Istanbul between police and protesters on June 16 last year while going to buy bread for his family.
    He became a rallying point for government opponents, who held vigils at the Istanbul hospital where he lay in intensive care from a head trauma believed to have been caused by a police tear gas canister.
    Elvan died on Tuesday (March 11) after nine months in a coma.
    Wednesday's protests are adding to pre-election woes for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as he battles a corruption scandal that has become one of the biggest challenges of his decade in power.
    The funeral ceremony was broadcast live on major television news channels, some of which were criticised for their scant coverage of last June's unrest.
    Elvan's death has sparked the most extensive street protests since last June, with skirmishes on Tuesday in cities including Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, Samsun on the Black Sea and the southern city of Adana, as well as Istanbul and Ankara.
    Erdogan, campaigning around the country for March 30 local elections, has yet to comment on Elvan's death. He dismissed last summer's protesters as riff-raff, and has cast both those weeks of unrest and the corruption scandal which erupted in December as part of an orchestrated campaign to undermine him.
    The uncertainty in the run-up to elections has unnerved Turkish investors, with the lira languishing at its weakest in five weeks, but has shown little sign so far of unseating the prime minister, fiercely popular in the conservative Anatolian heartlands for delivering a decade of rising prosperity.
    Istanbul and Ankara have both seen protests in recent weeks against what demonstrators regard as Erdogan's authoritarian reaction to the graft affair, which has included new laws tightening Internet controls and handing government greater influence over the appointment of judges and prosecutors.
    But opinion polls suggest that while support for his AK Party may have slipped, it remains comfortably ahead of rivals, with Erdogan's supporters pointing to a sharp rise in living standards during his 11-year tenure.
    Two labour unions called a one-day strike and encouraged members to attend the funeral while professors at some universities announced they were cancelling classes.
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