A protester in Istanbul died from a head injury and a police officer suffered a fatal heart attack during Turkey's worst day of civil unrest since anti-government protests swept the nation last summer, local media said late on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Riot police clashed with demonstrators in several Turkish cities on Wednesday as mourners buried a teenager, wounded in the protests last June, whose death this week after nine months in a coma sparked a fresh wave of disturbances, the AP reported.
The death on Tuesday of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who got caught up in street battles in Istanbul between police and protesters last June while going to buy bread for his family, has hit a raw nerve with many Turks, the AP reported.
Crowds chanting "Tayyip! Killer!" held up photos of Elvan earlier in the day as his coffin, draped in red and covered in flowers, was carried through the streets of Istanbul's working class Okmeydani district for burial, according to the AP.
A defiant Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, already battling a damaging corruption scandal weeks ahead of elections, cast the latest unrest as part of a plot against the state, according to the AP.
Police fired water cannon, tear gas and rubber pellets on a major Istanbul avenue to stop tens of thousands of protesters from reaching the central Taksim square, the AP reported. There were similar scenes in the center of the capital Ankara and in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
Officers in riot gear chased pockets of protesters into side streets late into the night, according to the AP.
"There were two groups attacking the police and one youth suffered a head injury ... and lost his life," Aziz Babuscu, the ruling AK Party's Istanbul provincial head, told the AP.
Hospital sources and local media in the eastern province of Tunceli, which also saw protests on Wednesday, said a police officer died after suffering a heart attack during the unrest, according to the AP.
Those attending the protests said Erdogan's silence on Elvan's death, in contrast to President Abdullah Gul and other public figures who issued messages of condolence, highlighted how out of touch he was with a large segment of Turkish society, the AP reported.
"Does democracy come with Molotov cocktails?," Erdogan told throngs of cheering supporters at a rally in the southeastern city of Siirt, according to the AP. "The path of democracy is the ballot box. If you have the power, go to the ballot box."
