Turkey is currently being rocked by its biggest wave of anti-government protests in years. At least two people have been killed and thousands injured from clashes with police since the protests began on Friday. Videos and images have emerged on social media showing police in riot gear firing tear gas, using pepper spray and physically beating demonstrators.
RIOTS in TURKEY looks like a WAR ZONE amid Police BRUTALITY & TEAR GAS - Protestors DEMAND FREEDOM
ISTANBUL -- Sitting on a concrete ledge surrounding Istanbul's Gezi Park overlooking a roadblock constructed from piles of rubble, high school student Alper Kuzgun is working on his math homework.
"I am not a protester, I am a student," Kuzgun told The Media Line. "But I am here. If the police come, I can help resist."
Over the past five days, he has been joined by tens of thousands of others his age who have come to voice their frustrations with Turkey's government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Anti-government demonstrators are concerned secular Turkey is drifting towards a conservative, Islamist-backed state. Proposed changes to the constitution, restrictions on free speech and a recent law restricting the sale of alcohol have lit a fuse on years of pent-up emotions. Graffiti across Istanbul calls on Erdoğan, who's been at the country's helm for a decade, to resign.
So far, he has rejected calls to step down and has brushed off the protests saying he expects things to "normalize" soon. But inside protest camps around historic Taksim Square, there are no signs people are settling down.
Celebratory fireworks light up the sky above the crowds of people clogging the cobblestone center, and candles shine through the tear gas drifting from a nearby police barricade spelling out words: "Taksim belongs to the people."
It is where a group of young people originally joined together last week to try to stop the destruction of one of the last strips of green around Taksim—part of plans backed by the government to build another mall there.
Turkey's deputy prime minister has offered an apology in an effort to appease anti-government protesters across the country as hundreds of riot police deployed around the prime minister's office in the capital for a fifth day.
Bulent Arinc, who is standing in for the prime minister while he is out of the country, said the crackdown was "wrong and unjust".
It was unclear, however, whether Arinc was giving the government line. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, has undermined statements by his ministers in the past. He has previously called protesters "looters" and dismissed the protests as acts by fringe extremists.
Thousands have joined anti-government rallies across Turkey since Friday, when police launched a pre-dawn raid against a peaceful sit-in over plans to uproot trees in Istanbul's main Taksim Square. Since then the demonstrations by mostly secular-minded Turks have spiralled into Turkey's biggest anti-government disturbances in years, and have spread to many of the biggest cities.
A 22-year-old man died during an anti-government protest in a city near the border with Syria, with officials giving conflicting reports on what caused his death.
Protests were directed at what critics say is Erdogan's aggressive and authoritarian style of governance. Many accuse him of forcing his conservative, religious outlook on lives in the mainly Muslim but secular nation. Erdogan rejects the accusations, says he respects all lifestyles and insists he is the servant not the master of the people.
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