Flames rage behind a protester in the Turkish capital Ankara as the country's biggest cities were rocked by days of some of the most violent riots there in decades.
Hundreds of police and protesters have been injured since May 31 in the unrest, which began with a demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square and grew into mass protests against what opponents call Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarianism.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Osman Orsal
A Turkish riot policeman fires tear gas as people protest against trees being destroyed in a park on Istanbul's central Taksim Square as part of a government development project.
The demonstrations were started by a small group of environmental campaigners but mushroomed when police used force to eject them, and widened into a broad show of defiance against the government.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Riot police use tear gas to disperse the crowd during an anti-government protest at Taksim Square on the day that serious unrest kicked off.
Protests have involved a broad spectrum in dozens of cities, from students to professionals, trade unionists, Kurdish activists and hardline secularists who see Erdogan seeking to overthrow the secularist state set up by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Some protesters accuse Erdogan of fostering a hidden Islamist agenda and object to tightening restrictions on alcohol sales and other measures seen as religiously motivated. Others complain of the costs from Erdogan's support of rebels in neighbouring Syria's civil war. Still others bear economic grievances, viewing the disputed development project in Taksim Square as emblematic of wild greed among those who have benefited from Turkey's boom.
Erdogan has dismissed the protests as the work of secularist enemies who never reconciled to the mandate of his Islamist AKP party, which has won three straight elections, overseen a period of economic growth and raised Turkey's profile in the region.
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. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
A protester sleeps on a chair in Taksim Square following an evening of serious unrest.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Another protester sleeps in a damaged and graffitied vehicle.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Following demonstrations, garbage bags are left strewn all over a street by protesters in order to form a barrier.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Demonstrators rest in Taksim Square.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Others shout slogans from the windows of a building during a protest against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The banner in the centre reads ''Long live our Taksim resistance".
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Riot police use tear gas to disperse the crowd during a protest.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Tear gas fills the air.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
A demonstrator hurls a gas canister back at riot police.
. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Another protester wears a gas mask fashioned out of a plastic water bottle.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
A protester reacts as riot police use a water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowd.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Osman Orsal
The spray from a water cannon showers down on a demonstrator.
. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A man is struck by a jet from a water cannon.
. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A demonstrator waves Turkey's national flag as he sits on a monument.
. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Demonstrators carry away an injured man during the third day of unrest.
. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A demonstrator with his blood type written on his arm holds out his fist and shouts slogans during clashes with riot police in central Ankara.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Stringer
Anti-government protesters standing behind barricades and on top of an excavator clash with riot police as they try to march to Prime Minister Erdogan's office in Istanbul.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Protesters clash with the police near the prime minister's office.
. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Riot police use water cannons to disperse the crowd during demonstrations at Taksim Square.