Key points
- Imamoglu has vowed to fight on
- He was suspended as mayor and jailed on Sunday
- Imamoglu was shipped off to Silivri prison
ISLAMABAD: Large-scale demonstrations continued for a fifth day in Istanbul against jailed suspended mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu despite a ban on rallies.
While some gatherings were peaceful, others descended into clashes with police.
Officers in riot gear tackled and threw people on the ground outside the city hall. Some officers were filmed kicking protesters and hitting them with batons.
Imamoglu vowed to fight on despite being suspended as mayor and jailed on Sunday, in developments that have sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade.
Addressing vast crowds of tens of thousands of protesters who gathered outside City Hall for a fifth straight evening, Imamoglu’s wife warned the authorities they would face a reckoning.
“He will defeat you!… you will lose!” Dilek Kaya Imamoglu shouted from the platform.
“The injustice Ekrem faced… it struck a chord with every conscience. Everyone found something of themselves and the injustices they faced in what was done to Ekrem,” she said.
Primary candidate
Imamoglu ran for vice president in the 2023 presidential election and has been considered the Republican People’s Party (CHP) primary candidate to run for president in 2028, according to RT.
In a post on X on Sunday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote that some police officers were attacked on the streets.
“We will never allow vandalism or threats to the peace and security of our nation,” he warned.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel has denied that the party had made any calls to violence. In his response to Yerlikaya, he wrote, “You will respect the democratic reaction that is the constitutional right of the nation. Any order given against it will be unlawful.”
Just four days after his arrest in a pre-dawn raid by hundreds of police, the powerful and opposition mayor was on Sunday stripped of his title and shipped off to Silivri prison on the megacity’s western outskirts.
The injustice Ekrem faced… it struck a chord with every conscience. Everyone found something of themselves and the injustices they faced in what was done to Ekrem.” – Jailed mayor’s wife Dilek Kaya Imamoglu
“This is not a judicial procedure, it’s a (political) execution without trial,” he wrote on X in a message through his lawyers.
Although the court decided against formalising his arrest in a separate “terror” probe, the interior ministry said he had been “suspended from office”.
As the court process played out, the main opposition CHP party held a long-planned primary to elect Imamoglu as its candidate in the 2028 presidential election.
Opening the ballot beyond its 1.7 million members to anyone who wanted to vote, they said in the end they had registered 15 million votes for Imamoglu.
“Out of a total of 15 million votes, 13,211,000 (not-party members) are solidarity votes,” they added.
“I won’t be bowed”
Turkey’s authorities issued court orders for the closure of more than 700 accounts on X, targeting “news organisations, journalists, political figures, students, and others within Turkiye”, the online platform said Sunday.
Describing the Turkish government’s move as “unlawful”, the company said it would defend the right to free speech through the courts.
France’s foreign ministry on Sunday denounced Turkey’s jailing of Imamoglu as “a serious attack on democracy”.
Earlier, Imamoglu insisted he would fight on.
“We will erase this black stain on our democracy. I will not be bowed.”
Throughout the day, voters flocked to ballot boxes in 81 cities after the CHP opened up the poll. People turned out in such large numbers that voting was extended by an extra three-and-a-half hours.
“Whenever there’s a strong opponent (to Erdogan), they are always jailed,” said 29-year-old voter Ferhat, who declined to give his surname.
“There is a dictatorship in Turkey right now, nothing else. It’s politics in name only,” he told AFP near City Hall.
Many people expressed anger over the move against a mayor whom they had elected.
“They have literally stolen our vote. It brings tears to my eyes,” 70-year-old Sukru Ilker told AFP.
Ayten Oktay, a 63-year-old pharmacist, said there was no going back.
“Now the Turkish nation has woken up. The protests will definitely continue after this. We will defend our rights until the end,” she said.
