A barrage of tear gas canisters light up the night sky before slamming into a wall of white-clad demonstrators on the periphery of Istanbul’s Taksim Square.

Emre Elmekci has a Kurdish keffiyah wrapped around his head and goggles and a heavy-duty mask strapped to his face. Flanked by Turkish nationalists on one side and leftists on the other, Elmekci throws the smoking metal tubes back towards the police lines.

“The violence we have seen here in the streets over the past few days is like the state violence that the Kurds have been facing for decades,” says Elmekci.

Read more on: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/06/201361214392425995.html

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