Rage against the election ban on 12 independent candidates poured out into the streets of Istanbul, Diyabakır, Van and Hakkari on Tuesday, drawing a harsh response from police.

Thousands of people gathered at Istanbul’s Taksim Square to stage a sit-in strike and then marched to the Aksaray district, where clashes with police broke out. Some protesters who tried to throw stones at police in Taksim were stopped by others, but the situation became more heated in Aksaray.

Stones were thrown at police and nearby buildings, and Molotov cocktails were tossed at some stores. Many injuries were reported and hundreds of people were affected by tear gas. Protesters who remained at the scene after the clashes began held another sit-up strike at a “civil disobedience tent” set up in Aksaray by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP. Police surrounded the strikers and kept newcomers from joining them.

The protest was sparked after the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, issued a decision late Monday disqualifying 12 candidates from the June 12 elections based on past convictions and legal technicalities. Among the candidates were seven backed by the BDP.

The demonstration at Taksim was attended by BDP deputies Sabahat Tuncel and Ufuk Uras alongside candidates Levent Tüzel, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Mustafa Avcı. Other parties from the Labor, Freedom and Democracy Bloc, in which the BDP is the leading party, and representatives of several nongovernmental organizations were also represented.

Riots in southeastern Turkey

Clashes meanwhile broke out in Diyarbakır in front of the courthouse where a group had gathered to protest the ongoing trial of the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. Many people were wounded during the clashes and transferred to hospitals. A 15-year-old protester named Remzi Çalı was shot and wounded by the police, according to the pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency, which is sympathetic to the BDP and often carries announcements from the PKK.

Many buildings and vehicles were damaged in the conflict, including the municipality building. The police confiscated a backpack full of Molotov cocktails, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Stores were shuttered in Van and in Hakkari’s Yüksekova district in protest of the YSK decision. Protesters who staged a sit-in at an intersection were gassed by the police, causing more clashes to erupt.

BDP-led protests in the streets of Van also drew police intervention, causing additional clashes between the two parties. Protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police, who responded with tear gas and pressurized water. Gendarmerie forces were sent to the city as the conflict spread. Deputy candidate Aysel Tuğluk and Van Mayor Bekir Kaya were allegedly battered by the police, according to local news sources.

Similar clashes and injuries were also reported Tuesday in Mersin province and Şırnak’s Cizre district. Incidents in all mentioned cities were ongoing as the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press.

The assailant who turned himself in to the police after stabbing prominent Turkish painter Bedri Baykam and another person in Istanbul on Monday has said he attacked the artist because he “did not like his type.”

Further investigation revealed that Mehmet Çelikel, 35, has received drug therapy for manic depression and spent six months in jail for stabbing the former fiancée of his second wife and another friend of his in 1998.

Çelikel’s brother Şaban Çelikel and his brother-in-law, identified only by his initials, E.Ö., were taken into custody as part of the questioning.

Married and divorced twice, Çelikel has a daughter from his second marriage in 1995. For the past five years, he has been unemployed and living alone in his home, where he usually slept through the day, according to the Doğan news agency, or DHA.

Investigators also disclosed that Çelikel used a knife known as a “commando blade” to stab Baykam and that he managed to learn the whereabouts of the painter at the time of the incident through his membership in a social-networking site.

Both Baykam and the other victim of Monday’s attack, Tuğba Kurtulmuş, are recovering in the intensive care unit of Acıbadem Maslak Hospital, said Professor Çağlar Çuhadaroğlu, the chief surgeon.

“At the moment, only first-degree relatives are allowed to visit the patients,” Çuhadaroğlu said. “The monitoring process in such cases lasts for about four or five days at least. It was observed in today’s evaluations that the general condition of our patients is improving.”

Interior Minister Osman Güneş meanwhile said Monday that he was saddened by the incident. “We relish the fact that this case has come to a resolution without the loss of much time,” he said.

Baykam was stabbed while leaving a meeting in Istanbul in support of the controversial “Monument to Humanity” in the eastern province of Kars. The statue’s sculptor, Mehmet Aksoy, has claimed the attack was related to the ongoing debate about the proposed demolishing of the statue, described as a “freak” by the prime minister.

“The choice of time, person and place is quite meaningful. Bedri [Baykam] is a democrat friend of ours. He is a very determined libertarian who does not shirk from raising his voice,” Aksoy said, emphasizing that the attack was premeditated.

The group deputy chairman for the main opposition party, Mehmet Akif Hamzaçebi, also condemned the incident while paying a visit to the Acıbadem Maslak Hospital with his fellow Republican People’s Party, or CHP, member Bahri Şahin. “It is unthinkable for such a savage attack to take place. This should not happen,” he said