Protesters clashed with police in Turkey's two biggest cities on Tuesday after the death of a 15-year-old boy who was hit in the head by a tear-gas canister during anti-government demonstrations last summer, according to the Associated Press.
Berkin Elvan, then 14, got caught up in street battles in Istanbul between police and protesters on June 16 while going to buy bread for his family, according to the AP. He slipped into a coma and became a rallying point for government opponents, who held regular vigils at the hospital where he lay in intensive care.
On Tuesday evening, police fired water cannon and tear gas in Ankara's central Kizilay square to scatter several thousand protesters who chanted: "Government of Erdogan, government of corruption, resign resign," the AP reported.The police pursued the protesters into sidestreets where small clashes continued.
Earlier, police broke up a crowd of more than 2,000 people, mainly students from Ankara's Middle East Technical University (ODTU), who blocked a highway to protest against Elvan's death, according to the AP.
There was similar police intervention against hundreds of protesters in Istanbul's central Istiklal street, one of dozens of places across Turkey where posts on social media had called for protests on Tuesday evening, the AP reported.
Istanbul and Ankara have both seen protests in recent weeks against what demonstrators regard as Erdogan's authoritarian reaction to the graft scandal, which has included new laws tightening Internet controls and handing government greater influence over the appointment of judges and prosecutors, according to the AP.
Crowds chanted "murderer Erdogan" and "the murderer state will be brought to account" as mourners carried Elvan's coffin, wrapped in red cloth and strewn with red carnations, to a "cemevi", an Alevi place of worship, in central Istanbul, the AP reported.
Alevis are a religious minority in mainly Sunni Muslim Turkey who espouse a liberal version of Islam and have often been at odds with Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government, according to the AP.
Among the throng of up to 1,000 people, some waved plain red flags, while shopkeepers in the Okmeydani district pulled down their shutters as a mark of respect, the AP reported. Elvan's mother, flanked by a group of women, stood crying at an open window.
