Clashes erupted when police ordered the group to disperse on grounds that their protest was illegal.

The demonstrators pelted the officers with stones and attacked them with sticks. Police, backed by armored vehicles, retaliated with pepper gas and fired in the air, the witnesses said.

At least 12 people, including eight police officers, were injured and several protestors were detained, they said, adding that there had been no serious injuries.

The protestors were demonstrating against the arrest of Sebahattin Suvagci, the provincial head of a now-dissolved pro-Kurdish party, on charges that he aided and abetted armed separatist Kurdish rebels.

Turkish officials often accuse Kurdish politicians of complicity with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Ankara government for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

Tensions in the Hakkari region have been running high since the November bombing of a Kurdish-owned bookstore in the town of Semdinli, which two soldiers and a Kurdish informer are accused of perpetrating.

The incident sparked deadly riots and accusations that Ankara had failed to purge rogue groups in the security forces accused of summary executions, extortion, kidnappings and drug-smuggling in the 1990s, when the PKK campaign in the southeast was at its peak.