Ed Ou for The New York Times
Protesters in Istanbul's Gezi Park take a break on Wednesday, as the occupation in Taksim Square enters its sixth day.
ISTANBUL — Representatives of a group that helped incite antigovernment protests that have been roiling Turkey since Friday gave a list of demands to the country's deputy prime minister on Wednesday, as the police expanded security operations and detained several dozen people accused of provoking illegal acts on social media networks.
The demands included the dismissal of the governors of Istanbul; the capital, Ankara; and the city of Hatay; as well as the head of the security forces in those three cities. The representatives' list also included the release of detained protesters; an end to the use of tear gas by the police; and the cancellation of the project that started the protests: the construction of an Ottoman era replica that would destroy a park in Taksim Square in Istanbul.
Two people have been reported killed and at least 2,300 injured in protests that spread to some 60 cities across the nation as people inspired by the protests at Taksim Square took to the streets to air broader grievances against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A spokesman for the Taksim Solidarity Group, which led the protests to save Gezi Park in Taksim Square, held a news conference that was broadcast live after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc.
"Mr. Arinc received our list of demands and said they would assess it," said the spokesman, Tayfun Kahraman.
Turkish police officers have already interrogated more than 1,700 people in connection with the protests. The bar association in the Aegen town of Izmir said Wednesday that 36 high school and college students there had been detained for investigation on charges that they provoked illegal acts via Twitter.
Twitter became the leading platform for information about the protests, in part because the country's mainstream media were silent as the protests broke out on Friday.
Ozkan Yucel, a member of the Izmir Bar Association, said the police had given no information to the families of those detained, and that parents were left to simply wait anxiously in front of various police stations.
"There is nothing lawful about these detentions," Mr. Yucel said.
05 Jun, 2013
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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEPmhE8hvyMMD_MrkY0DB144-ZSHg&url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/europe/turkey-protests.html
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