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Riot police fire tear gas to demonstrators in Istanbul on June 4, 2013, as part of ongoing protests against the ruling party, police brutality, and the destruction of Taksim park for the sake of a development project. Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government apologised today to wounded protestors and said it had “learnt its lesson” after days of mass street demonstrations that have posed the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decade in office. Turkish police had on June 1 begun pulling out of Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, after a second day of violent clashes between protesters and police over a controversial development project. What started as an outcry against a local development project has snowballed into widespread anger against what critics say is the government’s increasingly conservative and authoritarian agenda. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINIS