Turkey opposition pushes for early polls as Swedish reporter jailed
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A protester holds a cut-out of Istanbul's arrested mayor Ekrem Imanoglu during a rally.
PHOTO: AFP
ISTANBUL - The Turkish opposition on March 31 worked to keep up the momentum of the protest movement triggered by the Istanbul mayor’s arrest by pushing for early elections as well as his release, with a Swedish reporter the latest detained in a government crackdown.
The arrest on March 19 of Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu
After over a week of night-time street protests, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) on March 29 mobilised hundreds of thousands of people
He was seen as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Mr Erdogan at the ballot box after almost a quarter of a century in power with the President showing no sign of wishing to step aside ahead of elections due by 2028.
With Turkey entering several days of public holiday marking the end of the Ramadan Muslim fasting month, the opposition has vowed to keep up the protest movement while switching tactics to more focused events.
CHP party leader Ozgur Ozel, a former pharmacist who has stepped in as the party’s main public flagbearer as Imamoglu languishes in Silivri prison in Istanbul, launched a campaign to gather signatures for a petition calling for Imamoglu’s release and early elections.
“God is my witness that Ekrem Imamoglu’s crime is to be Tayyip Erdogan’s rival,” Mr Ozel said as he began the drive in the now suspended mayor’s home Black Sea region in eastern Turkey.
On March 29, Mr Ozel announced that protests would be held in a different one of Turkey’s 81 provinces every weekend and a different district of Istanbul every Wednesday.
“Those who think that we will not be able to celebrate the holiday are very wrong! Because we will definitely find a way to be together!” Imamoglu said in a message from prison transmitted through his lawyers on X.
‘Strength to defeat him’
The government has responded to the protests with a crackdown that has troubled the Nato member’s allies and rights groups, with dozens of young people spending the holiday behind bars, journalists detained and foreign reporters held or deported.
On March 30, Mr Ozel later returned to Istanbul to visit Imamoglu and dozens of other younger people detained in Silivri prison, vowing to “bring to account” those responsible.
“This country will be as democratic as Germany,” he vowed.
Dilek Kaya Imamoglu (right), the wife of Istanbul’s arrested mayor Ekrem Imanoglu, and Ozgur Ozel (second from left) wave during a rally on March 29.
PHOTO: AFP
Imamoglu’s adviser Mahir Polat, who has been arrested in the same case, has meanwhile been hospitalised with a heart condition, his lawyer Erkam Erdem was quoted as saying by the Cumhuriyet newspaper.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who works for the Dagens ETC newspaper, was arrested on his arrival in Turkey to cover the protests on March 27. He is being held on terror-related charges and for “insulting the president”, the Turkish presidency said.
His newspaper’s editor-in-chief Andreas Gustavsson described the accusations as “absurd”, telling AFP that “practising journalism should not be a crime”.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told public radio his case was an “absolute priority” and vowed to raise it with her Turkish counterpart.
The Turkish authorities accuse Mr Medin of taking part in a demonstration by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Stockholm in January 2023 during which a puppet representing Mr Erdogan was mocked.
But his wife Sofie Axelsson said: “The accusations are false, he is a journalist, nothing else.”
An aerial view of a large crowd gathering at a rally called by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in support of Istanbul’s arrested mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in Maltepe, on the outskirts of Istanbul, on March 29.
PHOTO: AFP
‘They are rising up’
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on March 27 that 1,879 people had been detained in connection with the protests since March 19, with 260 of them remanded in custody pending trial.
Mr Sinan Karahan said he would for the first time be spending the holiday without his 22-year-old son Sinan Can, a university student, who was sent to Silivri prison after being arrested in an Istanbul protest.
“These children were born when this party was in power, grew up under this government. They are not happy with its practices and they are rising up,” he told AFP, saying he had visited his son in prison on March 28 and he was in good health.
Mr Erdogan has previously branded the demonstrations “street terror”. The authorities have used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.
Mr Marta Kos, enlargement commissioner of the European Union, which Turkey still officially wants to join, said the arrests and deportations of journalists go against Turkey’s “commitments and democratic tradition”.
“Freedom of assembly is a fundamental right” the Turkish authorities have committed to in their quest to join the bloc, she added. AFP
