Thousands of people blocked the centre of Ankara, to defend the secular Turkish state and accuse their government of being pro-Islamic. Local television said 100,000 people joined the rally, many brandishing pictures of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey and a staunch defender of secularism. Similar demonstrations have been held since 2007, amid growing fears that Turkey’s Islamist-based ruling AK Party and its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan want to erode the traditional separation of religion and the state.