by Our Foreign Desk

TURKISH police clashed with mourners yesterday after authorities banned protests by workers and students over Saturday’s Ankara peace-march bombing.

Video footage from the Dogan news agency showed police pushing back a group of demonstrators trying to reach a rally to commemorate the 128 victims of the two blasts.

Plain-clothed police pushed at least two demonstrators to the ground and detained them.

“Our brothers were killed! What are you doing?” a woman shouted.

Demonstrations took place across the country on the second day of a general strike called by four major trade unions.

In Ankara, some 200 students held a brief sit-in at Ankara University’s faculty of political science to commemorate the victims.

Riot police formed a phalanx to prevent students from leaving to attend the main demonstration and fired tear gas to disperse another group of some 400 people who tried to march in the city.

In Istanbul, provincial governor Vasip Sahin banned protests on the pretext of “sensitivities at this time,” adding that the protest route would cause traffic congestion.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Islamic State (Isis) was now the main focus of investigations into the bombings and for peace with the country’s Kurdish minority, having initially tried to blame the Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the outrage.

But unions, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party and Kurdish groups have blamed the government.

The youngest victim, nine-year-old Veysel Atilgan, who died along with his father, was buried on Monday after an emotional ceremony at his school.