![Parliament has been rocked by two fistfights, a multiparty sit-in by opposition deputies, and nightly filibusters since the bill's introduction [AFP]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s594wReRHniTh29FKkyM_p6G5VUccB496NBn1ZFBE-F1AvbczKUitM_w7W-LSX-i49x1cLmnhKFOd9L2AqqcOoeYIEdq9zjInglG_oFKQ5RUZo6juboHAy_oY82Ewj7JlCL2jdeT_wZPYwkpBTN76oeawW_kUjzCqoIfFrPmgnbBw_QZmREut45qsH7AWGw72a9HjRRwxFYfvt=s0-d "Opposition mounts over Turkey's new security bill")
Hours after Kara returned from the small, nonviolent gathering in the city centre, police arrived at his doorstep, searched his home and declared that he, too, was under arrest for insulting Erdogan.
"If only I had shared my feelings online, I could have been arrested without the hassle of protesting at all," said Kara, whose tongue-in-cheek attitude could not conceal his fearful tone. "Every day, protesting becomes more of a crime."
OPINION: Turkey's coming police state
Concern has flared over the right to free assembly in Turkey after parliament partially approved a new security bill this week, vastly expanding police powers to detain demonstrators, conduct warrantless searches and use deadly force during violent protests.
"No one will be allowed to drag Turkey into an environment of chaos," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared in a televised address on Thursday.
Davutoglu described the bill as a security upgrade before parliamentary elections in June, warning against a repeat of deadly pro-Kurdish demonstrations that rocked the country in October. Almost 50 died during those protests, which erupted over Ankara's refusal to aid the Kurdish defenders of Kobane, a Syrian border town besieged by fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The bill faces unanimous opposition from parliament's three minority parties, but the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) holds 312 of 550 seats in parliament and has pledged to approve the bill unilaterally.
Parliament has since been rocked by two fistfights, a multiparty sit-in by opposition deputies, and nightly filibusters. After nine days of debate, only 33 of 132 articles have been approved.
"I have never seen parliament so angry and tense, so divided between the AKP and everyone else," said Aykut Erdogdu, a deputy for the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
Injured when a gavel struck him in the chest during a brawl last week, Erdogdu warned that the bill allows police to initiate strip searches or vehicle searches without a court warrant. That provision was approved earlier this week, along with an article extending non-court-approved detention periods from 24 to 48 hours, he said.
The death of eight people during nationwide protests in 2013 garnered international concern for police abuses in Turkey, "but the new law goes a step further, formalising the most troubling practices of the police," Erdogdu told Al Jazeera.
Davutoglu has dismissed criticisms of the law, declaring on Thursday that "every sentence of the law conforms to universal [human rights] standards". He argued that the criminalisation of protesters covering their faces had been copied from similar laws in EU states, while an article that allows police to use firearms against Molotov-cocktail-wielding protesters would reduce violence in the country's predominately Kurdish southeast.
"All [opposition parties] are now defending the Molotov cocktail," by filibustering the bill, Davutoglu said. "They are a Molotov coalition."
But even pro-government pundits have even expressed concerns over the law.
"Honestly, I find the powers of detention being granted to police and civil authorities to be problematic," wrote columnist Abulkadir Selvi in Yeni Safak, a leading pro-AKP daily.