Police kill Kyrgyzstan protesters

At least four people died when police opened fire on a crowd of protesters in the capital of Kyrgyzstan today.

The death toll from the police shootings was put at around 12 with around another dozen wounded.

Thousands of angry over the arrests of opposition leaders tried to seize the main government building in Bishkek after chasing and beating up dozens of police officers.

Police initially used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and concussion grenades against the crowds, who were disarming officers and seizing their vehicles.

Several officers were seen bleeding heavily.

The protesters tried to use one of the police vehicles to ram the gates of the government headquarters, known as the White House.

The unrest is also affecting the western town of Talas and the southern city Naryn.

The opposition has been galvanised by what they see as an increasingly authoritarian President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

The trouble has threatened the relative stability of the mountainous former Soviet nation seen by both Russia and the US as a strategic neighbour to Afghanistan.

Kyrgyzstan hosts a US base that supports military operations there.

In the White House attack some 200 elite police forces tried to push back the crowd but were forced back. Then police opened fire.

At least 10 opposition leaders were arrested overnight and were being held at the security headquarters in Bishkek, opposition politician Irina Karamushkina said.

“Authorities chose terror as a response” to popular protests, she said.

The protesters in Bishkek appeared to be leaderless, and some even drunk.

In Naryn 5,000 protesters seized the regional administration building and installed a new governor, opposition activist Adilet Eshenov said. At least four people were wounded in clashes, including the regional police chief.

Another 10,000 protesters stormed police headquarters in Talas, where yesterday protesters held the regional governor hostage in his office.

The crowd, mostly middle-aged men from nearby villages, looted police headquarters, removing computers and furniture. Dozens of police officers left the building and mingled with protesters.

The prime minister, meanwhile, accused the opposition of provoking the violence in the country of five million people.

“What kind of opposition is this? They are just bandits,” Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov said.

President Bakiyev came to power after spearheading 2005 street protests dubbed the Tulip Revolution, which ousted his predecessor while accusing him of corruption, cronyism and cracking down on the opposition.

Five years later Mr Bakiyev is facing similar accusations from an opposition that says he has sacrificed democratic standards to maintain peace while consolidating power in the hands of his brothers and son.

Authorities over the past two years have clamped down on free media, and opposition activists say they have routinely been subjected to intimidation and targeted by politically motivated criminal investigations.