Police used teargas to break up a protest in the town of eastern town of Gaziantep and arrested 10 supporters of the Kurdish leader. A number of officers were injured by stone-throwing protestors.

Police in the western city of Izmir arrested five protestors, while in the southeastern town of Cizre, they fired water cannon at stone-throwing demonstrators, the agency added.

The clashes came a day after seven policemen were hurt and seven protestors arrested at demonstration in the eastern town of Van.

Protests spread across the country after Ocalan's lawyers reported on Friday that he had been assaulted by a guard and threatened with death in his island prison of Imrali, in the northwest.

Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin has denied the allegations.

The leader of the outlawed militant Kurdistan Workers Party, has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.

Arrested in Kenya in February 1999, he was condemned to death by a Turkish court but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty.

Turkey, the European Union and the United States have all listed the PKK as a terrorist organisation. Some 44,000 people have died since its conflict with the Turkish state began in 1984.