Clean-up begins in Turkey after two days of unrest

Shopkeepers and municipal workers began cleaning the streets of Istanbul and Ankara today after the fiercest anti-government demonstrations in years.

Pockets of die-hard demonstrators lit bonfires and scuffled with police overnight but the streets were much quieter after two days of clashes in which almost 1,000 people were arrested and hundreds were injured.

The unrest was triggered by protests against government plans to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks to house shops or apartments in Taksim, long a venue for political demonstrations.

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A woman walks past damaged police cars in Taksim Square. Photograph: Reuters/Murad Sezer

But it has widened into a broader show of defiance against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Today, rain appeared to keep the crowds away from Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, where the protests originated, but did not dampen the spirit of a small group of protesters who remained huddled around a bonfire.

Rubble littered the square after days of stand-off between the protesters and Turkish riot police who fired tear gas and water cannon and played cat-and-mouse with them on side streets.

Shopkeepers scrubbed anti-government graffiti off walls.

Slogans were also sprayed on burnt-out vehicles including a police car and a bus. There were calls on social media for further protests today both in Istanbul and the capital Ankara but it was unclear how many people would turn out.

“We will stay until the end,” said one demonstrator. “We are not leaving. The only answer now is for this government to fall.

“We are tired of this oppressive government constantly putting pressure on us. This is no longer about these trees,” he said, referring to Taksim’s Gezi Park which became the focal point of the protests.

Hundreds of protesters set fires in the Tunali district of the capital Ankara yesterday, while riot police fired tear gas and pepper spray to hold back groups of stone-throwing youths near Mr Erdogan’s office in Istanbul.

Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, where the protests have been focused, was quieter after riot police pulled back their armoured trucks late yesterday.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said yesterday that 939 people had been arrested in more than 90 separate demonstrations around the country. More than 1,000 people have been injured in Istanbul and several hundred more in Ankara, according to medics.

The ferocity of the police response has shocked Turks, as well as tourists caught up in the unrest in one of the world's most visited destinations. It has drawn rebukes from the United States, European Union and international rights groups.

Helicopters have fired tear gas canisters into residential neighbourhoods and police have used tear gas to try to smoke people out of buildings. Footage on YouTube showed one protester being hit by an armoured police truck as it charged a barricade.

Mr Erdogan has overseen a transformation in Turkey during his decade in power, turning its once crisis-prone economy into the fastest-growing in Europe.

He remains by far the country’s most popular politician, but critics point to what they see as his authoritarianism and religiously conservative meddling in private lives in the secular republic. Some accuse him of behaving like a modern-day sultan.

Tighter restrictions on alcohol sales and warnings against public displays of affection in recent weeks have provoked protests. Concern that government policy is allowing Turkey to be dragged into the conflict in neighbouring Syria by the West has also led to peaceful demonstrations.

“It’s about democracy, and it’s going to get bigger,” said one demonstrator in a side street off Taksim Square, trying to rinse tear gas from his eyes.

Mr Erdogan has called for an immediate end to the protests and has said his government will investigate claims that the police have used excessive force. But he remained defiant.

“If this is about holding meetings, if this is a social movement, where they gather 20, I will get up and gather 200,000 people. Where they gather 100,000, I will bring together one million from my party,” he said in a televised speech.

He said the redevelopment of a park in Taksim was being used as an excuse for the unrest and warned the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) against stoking tensions.

In spite of Erdogan’s focus on the CHP, the protests have involved a broad spectrum of people opposed to the prime minister and do not appear to have been organised by a single political party.

After the police withdrew from Taksim Square, supporters of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish BDP party danced a Kurdish dance in celebration just yards from nationalists waving Turkish flags. They jointly chanted “shoulder to shoulder against facism”.

A group of soccer fans from fierce rival Istanbul clubs Fenerbache, Besiktas and Galatasaray joined the chant.

Protesters voiced anger at the limited coverage of the demonstrations by Turkish television stations, with many seeing government intimidation as to blame. Scores of journalists have been imprisoned during Erdogan’s decade in power.

Reuters