She shrugged off her fears to meet up with thousands of students in Istanbul's Macka Park on Tuesday as protesters across Turkey hit the streets for a seventh straight evening of anti-government rallies.

Perched on a steep hillside, this rare strip of green in the vast megalopolis that is Turkey's largest city, was a symbolic choice -- its full name: Macka Democracy Park.

For an entire generation of 20-somethings, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted AKP government are all they have ever known after a quarter of a century in power.

For their parents, the biggest mobilisation was in 2013 when a small protest against plans to demolish Gezi Park in central Istanbul snowballed into a wave of public anger.

Those protests have found echoes in the current unrest, with demonstrators chanting many of the same slogans and using similar protest images.

The latest protests began on March 19 following the arrest of Istanbul's popular opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan's biggest political rival, in a graft and "terror" probe.

Since then, demonstrators have defied a protest ban and hit the streets of Istanbul nightly, with the unrest spreading across Turkey.

So far, more than 1,400 people have been arrested, among them 10 journalists, including an AFP photographer who was jailed earlier on Tuesday for covering the protests.

- 'Hide your faces' -

For these young protesters, the stakes go far beyond the fate of Imamoglu or the main opposition CHP party to which he belongs.

"The republic has been in danger since Erdogan came to power more than 20 years ago," said Nisa.

"We can't express ourselves freely," she said, refusing to give her surname like most of these students.

"Of course I'm afraid of the police!" said a 20-year-old youth who called himself Ahmet, his face hidden behind a black-and-white Guy Fawkes-style Anonymous mask.

Knitted scarves, shawls, shirts -- they used whatever came to hand to hide their faces from the many police deployed around the park.

"Do not show your faces, do not post photos online with your faces uncovered," organisers warned participants during a meeting on Tuesday afternoon at Galatasaray University.

But not everyone was afraid.

Earlier on Tuesday, in a courtyard at Istanbul Technical University, 19-year-old Adanil Guzel, with dark curls and multiple earrings, said she had no fear of giving her full name.

"I don't belong to any political party but I've always been out on the street to protest, as a girl, as a queer person and as a Kurd," she said defiantly.

"I've always had to fight because my rights have never been guaranteed."

Since the Gezi Park movement, the only groups unafraid to regularly protest have been those marking International Women's Day on March 8 and LGBTQ groups turning out for Pride rallies.

- 'Resist, resist! We will win!' -

"Youth movements have always played a role in our history, since the start of the Republic" in 1923, said Kerem Gumre, 23.

"It's our historical responsibility as young people to be on the streets."

Above the protesters' heads on Tuesday flew the banners of their various universities alongside flags bearing the portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey.

"We are Mustafa Kemal's soldiers!" they chanted. "Resist, resist! Eventually we will win!"

Others chanted: "This is the year of the revolution, not the year of the family" -- in defiance of an Erdogan drive to increase fertility rates across Turkey.

They also chanted slogans suggesting Erdogan had falsified his university degree -- the same allegation thrown at Imamoglu in recent months.

On the eve of Imamoglu's arrest, Istanbul University revoked his degree -- a significant move as by law, presidential candidates must have a higher education diploma.

As Imamoglu was taken to jail on Sunday, the CHP held a primary in which 15 million people voted for him to be the party's representative at the 2028 presidential elections.