Turkish police tear gas protesters on Taksim anniversary
Turkish police tear gas protesters on Taksim anniversary
A young woman is led away by plainclothes police officers cracking down on the protest near Taksim square
Turkish police have used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Istanbul and Ankara on the first anniversary of deadly anti-government protests.
Some 25,000 police have been deployed at Istanbul's Taksim Square, the epicentre of the 2013 rallies.
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier urged youths to not join Saturday's protests.
Protests against plans to redevelop Gezi Park in Istanbul turned into mass rallies against PM Erdogan last year after a heavy-handed police response.
A number of people were killed in the unrest, with thousands more injured.
A 64-year-old woman, who fell into a coma after inhaling tear gas during another crackdown on protesters in the capital in December, died on Friday.
Gezi Park protester: "I would go back to the park again to protest"
Clashes broke out in Istanbul on Saturday after protesters marched on Taksim Square despite a government ban on gatherings in force there.
Riot police, water cannon and armoured vehicles were deployed to block access to the square and nearby Gezi Park. A number of demonstrators were reportedly arrested.
Security forces also fired tear gas at demonstrators in central Ankara.
Earlier on Saturday, Istanbul officers kicked and detained a CNN reporter during a live broadcast from Taksim Square.
A police officer tries to disperse protesters on Istiklal avenue in central Istanbul
Demonstrators lie on the ground, overcome by tear gas
A young family try to get through a police barricade
CNN journalist Ivan Watson, seen here surrounded by security forces, said officers had kicked him
Earlier in the day, riot police blocked access to Taksim Square, the site of last year's deadly crackdown on protesters
Ivan Watson said in a Twitter post that he and his film crew were "released after half an hour".
The main organisers behind last year's Gezi Park protests - Taksim Solidarity - had called for a demonstration to mark the one-year anniversary.
Rallies were also expected to take place in several other Turkish cities, including Izmir and Antakya.
But Mr Erdogan warned young people not to join, saying: "One year later, people, including so-called artists, are calling for demonstrations, but you, Turkey's youth, you will not respond to the call."
Addressing a crowd of young people in the capital on Friday, he described the movement as "terrorist organisations" that "manipulated our morally and financially weak youth to attack our unity and put our economy under threat".
Political commentator Guven Sak writes in Hurriyet: "Gezi was like a litmus test for all of us… Gezi is the "Basta moment" of the Turkish creative class... If you have any doubts about the impact of Gezi, just observe the number of policemen on the streets this weekend... Gezi freaked out the ruling elite of Turkey a year ago and look who is still freaking out. Just count the number of policemen."
(Via BBC Monitoring)
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