In my time in Turkey, it has made huge headlines whenever people have gathered to protest, but I've never seen more than 20,000 gathered at a protest. Mostly there are less than a 1000 who have gathered to protest America, the war in Iraq, or against Israel. This is a staggering number of people protesting:
"Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Turkey's capital on Saturday to try to stop the ruling AK Party from picking Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as their presidential candidate because of his Islamist roots.
The AK Party has its background in political Islam, and the possibility of an Erdogan presidency after parliament votes in May has split this secular but predominantly Muslim country, which is engaged in membership talks with the European Union."
""Turkey is secular and will remain secular," shouted protesters as they waved national flags and banners of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, revered founder of the republic which separated religion and state."
Hundreds of thousands rally against Turkish government - washingtonpost.com
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