8 April 2013 Last updated at 07:01 ET
The clash is another sign of tensions over Turkey's secularist institutions
Turkey police fight 'coup' trial protesters near Istanbul
The clash is another sign of tensions over Turkey's secularist institutions
Turkish police have fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters outside a courthouse near Istanbul where 275 suspected coup plotters are on trial.
Some protesters tried to tear down police barriers in front of the courthouse in Silivri.
Many waved Turkish flags and chanted anti-government slogans, showing solidarity with the defendants.
The "Ergenekon" plot allegedly aimed to topple the AK Party government.
Since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power, heading an Islamist-rooted movement, hundreds of military officers - serving or retired - have been arrested.
The investigations have undermined the traditionally powerful influence of the military in Turkish politics.
A BBC Turkish Service reporter at the scene said the whole prison-court complex in Silivri was under a cloud of tear gas, and it even leaked into the courtroom, where the hearing was interrupted with arguments about who could sit where.
Thousands of people, from several towns, started arriving by coach very early on Monday to support the defendants. They shouted "We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal!" - a reference to Ataturk, founder of the Turkish republic, who gave the state secularist foundations.
Generals in the dock
Retired armed forces commander Gen Ilker Basbug is among the defendants, who include other military officers, politicians, academics and journalists.
Prosecutors have demanded life imprisonment for Gen Basbug and 63 others, including nine other generals.
They are accused of links to an ultra-nationalist secret network called Ergenekon, which allegedly tried to foment chaos and trigger a military coup to oust the AKP. Mr Erdogan has been in power since 2002.
Critics say there is little evidence for the charges and accuse the government of trying to silence its secularist opponents.
In a separate trial last September three former army generals were sentenced to 20 years in jail each for plotting a coup against the AKP.
Nearly 330 other officers - including some senior military figures - were also convicted over the "Operation Sledgehammer" plot.
Turkey's military has long seen itself as the guarantor of the country's secular constitution.
It staged three coups between 1960 and 1980 and has a history of tension with the AKP. BBC
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