Protesters Flood Turkey’s Streets for Teen Bystander's Funeral

The funeral of a 15-year-old bystander, who died on Tuesday from head injuries he sustained during a protest last summer, drew tens of thousands of demonstrators to the streets of several Turkish cities on Wednesday.

It also drew police, who in some cities fired tear gas on protesters — an ironic response to rallies calling for an end to police brutality, some noted.

Berkin Elvan was reportedly on his way to buy bread for his family last June, when he was caught in clashes between police and protesters, and struck in the head by a tear gas canister. He died on Tuesday after nine months in a coma.

Elvan became a symbol of the Gezi Park protests and the government's harsh response to them.

In Istanbul, several thousand protesters gathered as the boy’s coffin was paraded through the streets. They called for the resignation of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and shouted “Berkin's murderers are the AKP police," referring to Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, which has ruled the country for more than a decade.

The prime minister has vowed to step down if his party loses in upcoming elections — widely seen as a test of his tumbling popularity. Local elections will be held at the end of March and presidential elections are scheduled for August.

"Erdogan is just in such major denial that he kills kids and attacks their funerals,” protester Yasemin Abay told VICE News. "He didn't take any blame or apologize at all today when he was giving a speech at his party's rally before elections at the end of the month."

The videos below show huge crowds gathered around the boy’s funeral procession.

Video uploaded on Instagram by fufulimbo shows Elvan’s funeral procession in Istanbul on Wednesday.

Video uploaded on Instagram by arzuturan shows Elvan’s coffin surrounded by protesters on Wednesday.

The protests that first flared up last May over plans to tear down a city park in Istanbul’s Taksim Square quickly escalated into the largest ever demonstrations against Erdogan’s rule. The new wave of demonstrations sparked by Elvan’s death marked the largest and most violent since last summer's unrest.

"I saw a guy from a distance whose face was hit with a plastic bullet and profusely bleeding," Abay told VICE News about Tuesday evening's protest in the Kadikoy neighborhood of Istanbul. "The district of Osmanbey is getting teargassed as we speak."

View the VICE News story In Photos: Police Brutality Sparks Police Brutality in Turkey.

Protesters rallied in several cities across Turkey, including in Izmir, the country's third most populous metropolis. Demonstrators there reportedly marched around six miles from Ege University to Gundogdu Square in the heart of the city.

Video uploaded on Instagram by me_ye shows Wednesday's protests in Izmir.

About 20 demonstrators have been injured and 150 have been arrested, according to local media, particularly in Ankara, where the most violent clashes took place.

The video and photos below show protests near Guvenpark in the capital, where police fired a water cannon and tear gas at protesters. Two police vehicles appear on the scene in the video, one firing a water cannon, and tear gas can be seen rising from the street.

Police in Ankara fired a water cannon and tear gas on protesters.

"Police forces used tear gas, pressurized water, and rubber bullets to intervene," Mehmet Atakan Foça, who took the video and photos at the Ankara protests on Tuesday, told VICE News. He added that some demonstrators responded by throwing stones and fireworks.

Foça said that people took to the streets to commemorate Elvan, but also to protest against police brutality, the government's protection of those responsible for the violence, its censorship of the internet, and widespread corruption.

"People want to be heard," Foça said. "People that have lost faith in the justice system started to gather in the streets again, as the last hope."

Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi