AKIPRESS.COM - On March 2, about 1,500 protesters took to streets in Bishkek demanding jailed politician Sadyr Japarov's release.

The peaceful rally that started at noon turned violent by the evening when a part of the protesters clashed with police heading to the government headquarters, while other part remained at the venue, the main square of Bishkek Ala-Too, calling for avoiding any provocations.

At around 6 pm, riot police started dispersal of the protesters using water cannons and police dogs, and by 6:30 pm, the protesters were completely gone.

166 people were detained on that day, 162 of them were released and 4 were arrested. Dozens of police officers and civilians were injured, cars parked nearby were damaged as rock throwing was reported.

Various reaction to the yesterday events came on the social media among the Kyrgyz netizens and this image showing a young man just reading his book while riot police were ready for crowd dispersal is going viral. One of the Twitter users captioned the photo "Me just reading a book amid war."