Calls by the main opposition for people to take to the streets over Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu’s arrest have led to violence and unrest in the country, with both security officials and protesters left wounded.
On Thursday, some protestors clashed with police in Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul, including at universities, and many rallied at the municipal headquarters in Istanbul despite a four-day ban on gatherings. Scattered protests took place across the country as authorities erected barricades blocking several streets.
The protests erupted mainly after Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgur Özel called for people to go out into the streets at a rally at the Istanbul Municipality building on Thursday. Moreover, Özel on Friday renewed his call on supporters to take to the streets, even as authorities widened a ban on protests and criticized the call as irresponsible.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç criticized Özel’s call, saying it was “irresponsible.”
“Gathering and marching in protest are fundamental rights. But calling people into the streets over an ongoing legal investigation is illegal and unacceptable,” Tunç said on X after midnight on Thursday.
Tunç said the response to any legal process or decision must be given in the courtrooms and called for calm, adding that the “independent and unbiased judiciary” was evaluating the case.
Yerlikaya, for his part, said on social media that a total of 326 suspicious account holders were determined, 72 of which were from abroad, for the crimes of “inciting the public to hatred and hostility” and “inciting people to commit crimes.”
He said 16 police officers had been injured.
“The current CHP administration, which can no longer hide its disputes with legitimate political channels and the values of our nation, wants to use chaos as a tool for its own dirty politics by showing the street as an address. This is not politics, it is at best lighting a fire of discord that threatens the peace and security of the country,” Efkan Ala, deputy chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) said on the issue on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Ankara governorate announced that indoor and outdoor meetings, demonstration marches, press releases, setting up tents, opening stands, sit-in protesting, signature campaigning, and similar actions and events, as well as the distribution of leaflets, are banned throughout the city for five days. The same measures have also been announced for Izmir. This means the ban is now in place in Türkiye’s largest three cities, including Istanbul.
Imamoğlu, 54, was taken into custody on Wednesday on charges of rampant corruption in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) and aiding the PKK terrorist group by recruiting its sympathizers.
‘CHP misleads public’
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday said the main opposition party was attempting to mask its own errors and mislead the public through “theatrics” in his first remarks on the detention of Istanbul’s mayor.
Erdoğan accused the opposition of failing to respond to the allegations with evidence or legal arguments.
“The opposition’s attempts to present their internal conflicts or legal issues as the country’s foremost problem are the height of hypocrisy.”
“Whether it’s about the diploma issue or matters of corruption and theft, the opposition never responds to the allegations brought forward by the judiciary,” Erdoğan said.
“Instead, they confine the matter to political slogans, resorting to the easy way of provoking their base and deceiving the public.”
“We have neither the time to waste on pointless debates nor stacks of money to throw around recklessly,” Erdoğan said.
Imamoğlu’s detention came a day after Istanbul University annulled his degree, which, if upheld, would block him from running for president.
The next presidential election is set for 2028.
Government officials reject claims by the CHP that the legal actions are politically motivated and repeatedly insist that the courts operate independently.
Meanwhile, the CHP said it would proceed with Sunday’s vote to nominate Imamoğlu.
Prosecutors say Imamoğlu was among the leaders of a criminal network apparently enriching themselves through bribes and rigged public tenders. Imamoğlu and 99 others are also accused of illegally obtaining personal data, while a separate probe also accuses him, IBB Deputy Secretary-General Mahir Polat, Istanbul’s Şişli district Mayor Resul Emrah Şahan and four others of helping the PKK. Security forces are still searching for 19 fugitive suspects.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul, run by Imamoğlu since 2019 as a mayor from the main opposition, the CHP, says the evidence, including testimonies of witnesses in an investigation into a notorious “money counting” video of CHP-linked people, implicated Imamoğlu and others. The video, leaked last year, is part of another investigation into allegations that the bags full of cash seen in the video were linked to “vote buying” for the CHP’s incumbent chair, Özel. Eyewitnesses told investigators that Imamoğlu and others pressured businesspeople via extortion, colluded with certain businesspeople to acquire illicit gains, were involved in money laundering through transactions using intermediaries and used people as “secret coffers” for the transfer of illicit gains.
A total of 100 suspects, including Imamoğlu, Murat Ongun, Tuncay Yılmaz, Fatih Keleş, Ertan Yıldız and others linked to the organization, have been implicated in charges related to “being a leader of a criminal organization,” “membership in a criminal organization,” “bribery,” “fraud,” “illegal data acquisition” and “tampering with a tender.” Ongun was once a spokesperson for Imamoğlu before his title was changed to “adviser,” while Yılmaz is the general manager of the Imamoğlu family’s construction company.
The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has included in the file of the corruption investigation against the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality the recordings of the conversations between the suspects in custody, Ongun and Serdal Taşkın, regarding the seizure of personal data of Istanbulites, authorities said Friday.
Ömer Çelik, the spokesperson of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), also disputed allegations by the opposition that the detentions were government-orchestrated and urged respect for the judicial process.
“What a politician should do is to follow the judicial process,” Çelik told journalists. “None of us have any information about the content of the (criminal) file.”
He also rejected accusations leveled by the CHP that the mayor’s arrest amounted to a “coup,” saying, “The name of our party, our president, can only be associated with democracy – on the opposite side of a coup.”
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