ANKARA, Aug 1 (AFP) - Dozens were injured in eastern Turkey on Sunday when police clashed with a crowd of some 1,000 people protesting against prison conditions in the country, media reports said.
At least 24 people were taken into custody in the demonstration in the city of Tunceli, a hotbed of Kurdish and left-wing militancy with a history of anti-government unrest, CNN-Turk television reported.
Tunceli police chief Sinan Salman told Anatolia news agency that 30 officers were injured when the demonstrators hurled sticks and stones at the police.
Several protestors were also injured, CNN-Turk said.
The unrest erupted when the demonstrators, members of support groups for prisoners, were barred from marching to the local office of the governing Justice and Development Party on the grounds that they did not have a prior permission to hold the march.
As the protestors attacked the police, security forces fired shots in the air and sprayed tear gas and water on the crowd, Anatolia said.
Authorities stepped up security measures in the city, Salman said.
The Ankara government has long resisted pressure to ease the conditions of inmates in high-security jails, whose introduction in 1999 triggered a deadly hunger strike among far-left prisoners.
Kurdish activists, meanwhile, demand an end to the isolation of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence as the sole inmate on a prison island in the northwest.