Turkish police used water cannon, tear gas and baton charges to break up Kurdish demonstrations across the country on Sunday, a sign of rising tension ahead of the Kurdish New Year next week.
Turkey's pro-Kurdish party and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) armed militants have both called for large demonstrations for Newroz, the Kurdish New Year that begins on March 21, sensing the government, which has strongly backed Arab uprisings, may be vulnerable to pressure from street protests.
Both the legal Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the PKK are demanding a level of autonomy for the mainly Kurdish south-east of the country. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's conservative government has taken steps to increase cultural rights for the country's Kurds - some 20 percent of the population - but says these are individual rights and that it is strongly against any separate political settlement for the Kurds or the south-east as a whole.
The biggest protest took place in Diyarbakir, the main city in the south-east. Several thousand people gathered to march to an area just outside the city to celebrate Newroz. Hundreds of riot police, backed by armoured cars and helicopters, took over strategic points in the city from the early morning.
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