Thousands of Kyrgyz opposition supporters gathered Thursday on the square in front of the country's parliament in Bishkek, which currently houses the interim government.
The rally was organized by businessman Urmat Baryktabasov, who was put on the country's wanted list and charged with an attempt to overthrow the government after the 2005 Tulip Revolution.
Local police said that Baryktabasov's supporters lined up in front of the parliament shouting "Umrat!" Interim Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbaeva is not in the building.
About 400 supporters of the interim government also gathered on the square near the parliament building.
The event sparked a wave of rumors about the possibility of further unrest in Kyrgyzstan, which has seen several outbreaks of political and ethnic violence this year.
Earlier in the day volunteers from self-defense squads and police patrolled the streets of the Kyrgyz capital amid growing fears of another outbreak of unrest in the ex-Soviet state.
The situation in the former Soviet Central Asian republic remains strained following several months of unrest and Kyrgyz media said on Thursday that a state of emergency had been introduced in Bishkek. The government denied the report.
Violent anti-government protests in April forced then-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to leave the country with his immediate family and take refuge in Belarus.
Clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks broke out in the southern city of Jalalabad in May, killing two people and injuring more than 70.
In mid-June, the country saw its worst interethnic clashes in two decades, with some 2,000 people believed killed. About 100,000 people fled to neighboring Uzbekistan and hundreds of houses were destroyed in the riot-hit Osh and Jalalabad regions.
BISHKEK, August 5 (RIA Novosti)
