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On a day marking the 89th anniversary of the founding of Turkey, a country that has marketed itself as a stable, prosperous and democratic role model for the Muslim world, riot police clashed with defiant opposition groups, firing water cannons at a patriotic rally in the capital, CNN reported.

Tensions mounted ahead of Monday's Republic Day holiday, when the governor of Ankara banned the planned march organized by secularist opposition groups that are deeply critical of Turkey's Islamist-rooted government.

Despite the ban, opposition groups defiantly vowed to go ahead with their rally. They were joined by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey's largest opposition party, the Republican People's Party, or CHP.

Kilicdaroglu boycotted the government's traditional military parade. Instead, he attended the opposition gathering, just a few minutes' drive away from the parade grounds in Ankara.

Turkish television networks split their live coverage of two simultaneous Republic Day celebrations. Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sat in grandstands, watching police, schoolchildren and helmeted soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers filing past on parade.

Meanwhile, CHP leader Kilicdaroglu addressed a crowd of several thousand flag-waving supporters next to a statue of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.

Sometime after noon Monday, cameras suddenly broadcast live images of riot police firing water cannons at the opposition gathering. CNN Turk showed waterlogged activists brandishing Turkish flags, struggling to stand their ground against multiple water cannons. Activists said police also fired tear gas at the rally.

"They used gas and they used water," said Alper Kafa, an opposition party activist and general director of the Association of Public Conservatory Graduates, speaking on the phone from Ankara with CNN.

"This is the shameful face or our alleged democracy," he added. "On the 89th anniversary of our great leader's foundation of the republic, in the place where he made the declaration, they used gas against the people. It is so very sad."

"It is shameful to use water cannons and tear gas at crowds which include children and old ladies out there to celebrate the republic," said Asli Aydintasbas, a columnist with the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet.

"It shows to me that people come and go, but the fundamentals of the regime in Ankara do not change."