Thousands clash with police as Turkish teenager buried

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By Dasha Afanasieva and Ayla Jean Yackley ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Riot police clashed with demonstrators in several Turkish cities for a second day on Wednesday as mourners buried a teenager wounded in protests last summer, unrest which a defiant Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cast as a plot against the state. Police fired water cannon, tear gas and rubber pellets on a major Istanbul avenue to stop tens of thousands of people chanting anti-government slogans from reaching the central Taksim square. Berkin Elvan's death on Tuesday after nine months in a coma touched off the worst unrest in Turkey since the nationwide anti-government demonstrations last June, adding to Erdogan's woes as he battles a graft scandal that has become one of the biggest challenges of his decade in power. Alevis are a religious minority in mainly Sunni Muslim Turkey who espouse a liberal version of Islam and have often been at odds with Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government.




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