CNN news 2013-06-15 加文本

cnn news 2013-06-15

Police crackdown on protesters picking upagain over the last several hours in Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul, and nowspreading to Turkey's capital, Ankara, as well.

You're looking at Taksim Square in the middle of Istanbul. What began late lastmonth as a protest against bulldozing a park nearby has evolved into somethingbigger focusing against the government itself at times and the policies ofTurkey's Prime Minister Erdogan.

What you're seeing has ebbed and flowed throughout the evening, police movingin, then regrouping, many protesters leaving, some digging in. The situationheating up again within the past hour or so and as we said there are nowreports of unrest on the streets of Ankara, police in the Turkish capitalfiring tear gas overnight toward apparent protesters as armored vehiclescleared make shift barricades along the streets.

Meantime, this latest chapter here Taksim Square is still unfolding. Minute byminute, it seems to change, began over the span of several intense hours tonightwhen police moved into the square. Some of what you will see and hear in thevideo we're about to show you are not gunshots, but protesters setting offsmall fireworks and also the sound of tear gas canisters firing. Much of whatyou will see and here is chaos with correspondents’ right in the middle of it.

Those rounds are being shot directly into Gezi Park. There were thousands, tensof thousands of demonstrators who were peaceful. Again, we were standing righthere when something like an altercation seemed to have broken out.

We don't know what sparked this police move. But then I could say there wassome sort of altercation. They have been seeing that though all day, so nospecific reason why that itself would cause a trigger to such an enormous responseby police.

I will just let you see the fireworks going off behind me now. It's unclear ifthey are celebratory or just seeing earlier on today being fired at the policeas part of the protests. We're seeing people run away now again scattering.It's not quite clear why we're haven't heard the familiar crack of tear gasagain. But they are moving. There we are. So much of the danger for people inthese situations of course is that fear of mass panic where people run in anunknown direction for unknown reasons. Here is the banging again.

We're right now in the very front of the park. You can see people trying tohelp us out because of the tear gas. The entire front part of the park rightnow has been cleared out because of the intensity of what was just fired in.

People are incredibly angry, infuriated as to the way the government has beenhandling all of this.

But it's become a bit of a routine. Tear gas is fired in, people clear out andthen they move right back in.

Just a couple of 10 seconds ago, a minute, a massive volley of tear gas fromthe police in that direction and now one, two, three, I'm going to have putthis gas mask on, I'm afraid.

Nick, first of all, explain your vantage point, where you are in relation towhere Arwa is and what's your, what's happening right now.

Right behind me, Anderson, just as I started talking. We're seeing fireworks,and we've seen these fired towards police for much of last 19 hours as I'vestanding here. It seems to be the weapon of choice. Give you a moment to listento this.

It appears to be the weapon of choice of protest. Now it's a confusingsituation down the streets, closest to me. Let me explain, we're talking aboutthe square here, the park, Arwa, when we saw footage earlier was on the farside. I'm on the near side towards me.

Down the left, police earlier this evening made a substantial foray, theypushed a lot of armored trucks, water cannons, bulldozers, clearing barricadespushing everybody back.

I can't see the entirety on the road where I'm standing, but in the last halfhour protestors seemed to have crept back up that road. That I think is wherethose fireworks were fired from. So it begs the question what is the policestrategy here, how do they intend to retain control of the territory and theypush forward and take? And we've been asking these question for much of thenights.

Hard to really understand exactly what their final game plan is. Tear gas is nowbeing released in that area that is the standard tactic when they see theopposition, they fire these normal volleys of tear gas cannons. They’ve driftedacross the square, often blowing with the prevailing winds into our liveposition here.

I'm hearing the shouts of the protesters right now behind me down that roads.We had thought much of the protest being pushed back. But we saw some of thearmored water cannon trucks moving, in fact firing water cannons into Gezi Parkitself.

We just now having seen for about 2 hours pretty much calm in this large partsof Takism Square where the police went about the business, using bulldozers,collecting the debris, the barricades, the leftovers and faring them off.Things appear to be under control to a degree but now we saw those fireworks.