Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan issued a final warning to protesters occupying a park in central
Istanbul on Thursday, saying patience had run out and calling on them to leave.
"Our patience is at an end. I am making my warning for the last
time. I say to the mothers and fathers please take your children in hand and
bring them out... We cannot wait any more because Gezi Park does not belong to
occupying forces but to the people...," Erdogan told an AK Party meeting
in Ankara.
In this regard,
Erdogan said police will remove "troublemakers" from Istanbul's
Taksim Square within 24 hours.
The Thursday warning comes less
than a day after Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party offered a plan to hold a
referendum over a development plan near the square that has fanned two weeks of
protests.
Meanwhile, a lawyer said a protester
injured during clashes with Turkish riot police has died, raising the death
toll to five from the two-week standoff between police and activists that has
challenged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.
Family lawyer Sema Aksoy said 26-year-old Ether Sarisuluk who had been on
a life support for days was pronounced dead Thursday. He was believed to
have been hit in the head by a tear gas canister during protests in Ankara on
June 1.
A human rights group says thousands of people were treated for injuries in
protests that began May 31.
On another note, two Canadian Broadcasting Corp reporters covering protests in
Istanbul were detained by Turkish police on Wednesday, and later released, the
two reporters said in messages on the social media site Twitter.
"My exclusive 'tour' of the Turkish justice system is over!" Derek
Stoffel tweeted after his release from Turkish custody.
His colleague Sasa Petricic was more succinct. "We're out," he
tweeted.
The protesters in Turkey are demonstrating against what they say is the
authoritarianism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, while Erdogan and government
ministers have accused international media of stoking the unrest through their
coverage.
Mainstream Turkish media provided only brief coverage of the initial violence
nearly two weeks ago, stepping up reporting only after Erdogan commented on the
unfamiliar scenes of chaos.
REUTERS/AP/LBCI