Journalist among 1,100 detained in Turkey since Erdogan rival’s arrest
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Riot police facing students protesting against the arrest of city mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in the Besiktas district of Istanbul, on March 24.
PHOTO: AFP
ANKARA – The Turkish police have detained more than 1,100 people, including journalists, since the arrest of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival sparked the country’s worst unrest in years, a minister said on March 24.
The demonstrations began in Istanbul after popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu’s arrest last week
The popular 53-year-old has been widely seen as the only politician who could defeat Turkey’s long-time leader Erdogan at the ballot box
In just four days, he went from being the mayor of Istanbul – a post that launched Mr Erdogan’s political rise decades earlier – to being arrested, interrogated, jailed and stripped of the mayorship as a result of a graft and terror probe.
On March 23, he was overwhelmingly voted in as the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) candidate for the 2028 presidential run, with about 15 million people casting their ballots in a show of support for Imamoglu.
Observers said it was the looming primary that triggered the move against Imamoglu, the main political rival of Mr Erdogan who has dominated Turkey’s politics since 2003, first as prime minister and then as president.
His jailing drew sharp condemnation from Germany, which called it “totally unacceptable” as Greece said moves to undermine civil liberties “cannot be tolerated”.
The European Union warned Ankara that it needed to demonstrate “a clear commitment to democratic norms”. Overnight, France’s Foreign Ministry said it was a “serious attack on democracy”.
‘We cannot remain silent’
On March 24, students at the main universities in Istanbul and Ankara called for a boycott of lectures.
Young protesters were also preparing to hold a rally by Besiktas port on the Bosphorus, ahead of the main nightly rally outside City Hall.
The March 23 gathering descended into fierce clashes with riot police kicking and beating people in Istanbul, AFP correspondents said.
Protestors holding up Turkish flags during a rally on March 24.
PHOTO: AFP
Before dawn on March 24, the police detained 10 Turkish journalists at home, including an AFP photographer, “for covering the protests”, the rights group MLSA said.
Most of them were covering the mass demonstrations outside City Hall, it said, in a move denounced by Imamoglu’s wife Dilek Kaya Imamoglu.
“What is being done to members of the press and journalists is a matter of freedom. None of us can remain silent about this,” she wrote on social media platform X.
Since March 19, the police detained more than 1,133 people for “illegal activities”, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on March 24.
Among them were two lawyers who were defending protesters detained by the police, the Bar Association in the western coastal city of Izmir said.
Imamoglu – who has denounced the judicial moves against him as a political “execution without trial” – sent a defiant message from jail via his lawyers.
“I wear a white shirt that you cannot stain. I have a strong arm that you cannot twist. I won’t budge an inch. I will win this war,” he said.
Throughout March 23, millions voted in the CHP’s highly symbolic primary, which was opened to voters beyond the party’s 1.7 million members.
“Out of a total of 15 million votes, 13,211,000 are solidarity votes,” City Hall said, referring to the number of ballots cast by those who were not CHP members.
Faced with the massive protests, Turkey’s authorities sought to shut down more than 700 accounts on X, the online platform said on March 23.
‘Movement of violence’
Mr Erdogan said on March 24 that the protests over the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor had turned into a “movement of violence” and that the main opposition party would be held accountable for injured police officers and damage to property.
Speaking after a Cabinet meeting in Ankara, Mr Erdogan said the CHP should stop “provoking” citizens, adding that their “show” would eventually end and they would feel shame for the “evil” they had done to the country.
Earlier, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya accused the protesters of “terrorising” the streets and threatening national security. He said 1,133 people had been detained during five days of protests and that 123 police officers had been injured.
The CHP labels Imamoglu’s arrest as politically motivated and undemocratic. Mr Erdogan’s government denies these assertions and says Turkey’s courts are independent. AFP, REUTERS
