ISTANBUL (AP) Police on Saturday fired water cannon and tear gas in downtown Istanbul to disperse anti-government demonstrators after barring them from entering a park where they had hoped to celebrate the wedding of a couple who met during last month's widespread protests.
The clash occurred after police closed Gezi Park near Istanbul's landmark Taksim Square, then forced demonstrators to a pedestrian street and fired the water cannon, according to the private Dogan news agency. Police also chased some protesters down side streets and fired tear gas, according to the websites of Radikal and Hurriyet newspapers. No casualties were immediately reported.
The newly married couple and hundreds of protesters were later allowed into Gezi Park, where photographs were taken. But the crowd was soon again forced out of the park, apparently after it began to chant anti-government slogans.
The bride who wore a white hard-hat over her bridal veil said she'd met her betrothed a month earlier, during weeks of nationwide protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom critics say has grown increasingly authoritarian during his decade in office.
The protests were sparked by a brutal police crackdown on a sit-in by environmentalists trying to prevent the uprooting of trees at Gezi to make way for the construction of a replica Ottoman-era barracks.
