Police have withdrawn from Taksim Square after three days of clashes with protesters demonstrating against the urbanization of Gezi Park.
The violent conflicts between protesters and officers have sparked a massive anti-regime demonstration, according to Bloomberg.
Proponents of the current regime’s opposition, the Republican People’s Party, have reoccupied the park and are calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan recently ordered an investigation into police officers’ use of pepper spray and called for an end to the protests. He acknowledged the police may have used excessive force, but says the plan for the park will go ahead, according to the BBC.
The city center park was recently slated to be urbanized into a reconstruction of Ottoman era military barracks and a possible shopping mall.
The protest initially began as a nonviolent sit-in, but turned violent when police attacked demonstrators with tear gas and water cannons on Friday. The clashes have been well-documented on Twitter; a search for "#OccupyGezi" or "#OccupyTaksim" renders various photos of blood running down the streets and multiple participants' gruesome injuries.
Though the demonstration began as a local issue about the urbanization of Gezi Park, the violence has stirred anti-government sentiments toward the alleged “Islamisation” of Turkey.
“This has become a protest against the government, against Erdogan taking decisions like a king,” one woman named Oral Goktas told Reuters.
Image: Twitpic