Hello and welcome to NewsHour LIVE from the BBC World Service in London.
I'm Rebecca Kesby, and we begin the program today in Turkey,
the scene of massive protests in recent days,
not just in the main city, Istanbul, but across the country.
More than 1,800 people have been arrested.
Tear gas and rubber bullets have been fired by police.
The demonstrations began when the popular mayor of Istanbul and political rival of President Edo was arrested last Wednesday.
But now there are fears that the authorities are cracking down on media outlets.
Opposition TV stations have been ordered to suspend some programming,
and several journalists, both local and international, have been arrested,
including the BBC's own Mark Lohan,
who at one point was the BBC's correspondent in Turkey and had returned to cover the protests.
Today he was deported, accused by the authorities of being a threat to public order.
Here he is reporting from the protests earlier this week.
I've had to come a little bit away from the crowd
because the authorities jam the Internet signal around the protest site.
So in order to be able to speak to you, I've just come a little bit further up the road,
but I can still see very large crowds of protesters who are waving Turkish flags.
They are waving flags of Ekrem Imamolu, this detained and arrested mayor of Istanbul,
and they have gathered outside the city hall.