Protests over the dismissal of three Kurdish mayors from key cities in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast region continued for a third day amid shocking displays of police brutality against civilians.

In the Kurds’ informal capital of Diyarbakir, Remziye Tosun, a lawmaker for the left-leaning and Kurd-friendly People’s Democratic Party (HDP), collapsed on the ground as riot police backed by armored personnel carriers sought to disperse protesting crowds with high-pressure hoses. Several journalists covering the scene were beaten by the police, who also used plastic bullets, tear gas and clubs. 

Tosun and several other HDP lawmakers were trying to enter the municipality building where a state-appointed governor has taken charge. Ousted HDP Mayor Selcuk Mizrakli, who was elected with over 60% of the vote, is accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, a charge leveled against all three mayors that apparently did not disqualify them from running in the March 31 local elections.

HDP lawmaker Ridvan Turan said before a modest crowd staging a sit-in outside the building, “Appointing a state administrator is a denial of democracy, a denial of basic rights and freedoms, a denial of a people’s right to govern themselves.” Turan continued, “The government believes that by sowing chaos it can perpetuate its rule. The administrator will go and we will send the fascist [Justice and Development Party] AKP and [its nationalist allies] to the dustbin.”