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Frame grab from footage provided by AFP shows anti-Erdogan protesters in Istanbul on May 21, 2017.

Police in Istanbul have fired tear gas atprotesters angry with the results of a recent referendum which givesPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers.

Participants at the Sunday rally denounced the results of the April 16 referendum thatwill replace the Turkish republic's parliamentary formof government with a strong presidency.

The powers include the head of states ability to hire and fire at will, prompting Amnesty International on Monday toaccuseAnkara of implementing "arbitrary dismissals".

In a report, the UK-based rights body criticized the expulsions, which it said were "carried out arbitrarily on the basis of vague and generalized grounds of connection to terrorist organisations."

It was referring towhat criticsdenounce asan overused tactic by the governmento accuse suspects of links to Kurdish separatists and US-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, whom Ankara says was behind a coup last July.

Erdoganhas been riding a wave of patriotism after quashing thecoup, holding around 47,000 people in detention and summarily dismissingmore than 100,000 public sector employees.

According to Amnesty, of those dismissed more than 33,000 are teachers and other employees of the Education Ministry while over 24,000 are police officers and others from the Interior Ministry.

Over 8,000 are members of the armed forces, more than 5,000 are academics and include those working in the higher education sector as well as over 4,000 judges, prosecutors and justice ministry officials, the group said.

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On Sunday, Erdogan was elected the head of the countrys ruling Justice and Development Party, a position he had stepped down from three years ago.He was the only candidate of the internal vote.

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Police raid anti-Erdogan rally in Istanbul - Press TV