First person: Moments of peace amid protests in Turkey

• Thousands across Turkey have been protesting the government
• Taksim Square has seen the most high-profile demonstrations
• Protesters are calling on the government to resign

ISTANBUL — For the second night in a row, protesters marched in the streets outside my hotel here in Tarabya — an upscale neighborhood of Istanbul. A small crowd of 75-100 people banged on pots and pans, honking horns, singing. They waved Turkish flags and carried large photographs of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — the beloved founder of the Turkish Republic.

It was an extremely well-behaved crowd. Last night, the crowd dispersed exactly at midnight, as if they didn't want to keep the neighborhood awake.

The locals all seem to support the protesters — honking and waving in support — with one exception. One driver got furious when he couldn't pull his car out of a parking space, and began to pound on a protester's car, screaming. It looked as if a fight was going to break out, but other protesters calmed everyone down and arranged for him to pull out safely.

I spoke to a few of the marchers and some observers who spoke English. Across Turkey, demonstrators have been protesting rising authoritarianism and calling for the government to resign. In Ankara, some of the protests turned violent. In Istanbul, landmark Taksim Square has seen the bulk of the protests, which were triggered by a violent altercation between police and demonstrators who were peacefully opposing the removal of trees.

"He wants to take Atatürk from us," said Canberk Yigitcan, a student at Terakki High School, who has been out marching for the last three nights here in Tarabya. "He wants to be the Sultan of the Turks." His friend — a student at Istanbul Tech — said he wants Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to apologize. "He does what he wants to do; he's like a dictator … he's using Islam."

Aysegul Atesdagli, 25, a master's degree student at Istanbul University, had been at Taksim two nights before and couldn't go to work Saturday because she was sickened by the tear gas. "Right now, there's no right wing or left wing in Turkey, no religious or non-religious," she said. "I have seen some (religious) women in (head scarves) in the protests. It's beyond any ideology right now."

"I hope good things happen from this," Atesdagli continued. "We thought we'd end up like a lost country. People have been sleeping. We have been sleeping."

Atesdagli also mentioned the issue of banning alcohol. The Taksim area is a very popular area for young people, and the government banned drinking outdoors in a spot filled with sidewalk cafés and bars. A strict bill regulating alcohol sales, supported by Erdogan, is about to be enacted.

Walking around this area this afternoon, I saw a number of Turkish flags and photos of Atatürk hanging from balconies and from storefronts — likely a sign of support for the protesters.

Kourtney Ratleff, a partner at Look Capital Markets in Chicago, here for the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network, was staying in Taksim on Friday when the protests began. "It felt like a parade rather than a protest," she said. "The protesters — college students and professionals — weren't touching or hitting cars. No windows or glass was broken."

She was in a café when the servers told all the patrons to go downstairs because the police were using tear gas on the crowd, and it definitely seemed to her that the police were using excessive force on an otherwise peaceful crowd, she said. "The protesters were on their iPhones and going through their purses. If you're in the middle of a riot, do you really carry a purse?"

No one seems to be upset by any of this. Everyone we have spoken to — hotel clerks, guides, café workers — seem supportive of the protesters and not particularly concerned about safety or security.