3 youths briefly detained for hanging wanted poster for former minister

Police briefly detained three members of the main opposition party’s youth branch caught hanging wanted posters for Turkey’s former finance minister, Berat Albayrak, Turkish Minute reported, citing the Sözcü daily.

The youth branch of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) produced the wanted poster for Albayrak, the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has not appeared in public since his unexpected resignation from office in early November, leading to widespread speculation and jokes about his whereabouts.

The posters were distributed across Turkey’s 81 provinces. The detention of Ozan Yalçın, Salman Demir and Cem Akbulut, who were hanging the posters in the public squares, took place in the Kemalpaşa district of İzmir. The three were released after appearing in court.

In a surprise move on Nov. 8, Albayrak stepped down, citing health reasons, in a statement on Instagram. His resignation was accepted by Erdoğan on Nov. 9 after hours of silence from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and pro-government media outlets.

Since then, no one has heard from Albayrak, nor has he been seen in public. Some say the former minister moved abroad, while others claim he’s in seclusion in his Black Sea hometown of Trabzon.

Albayrak, who was appointed finance minister in 2018, has frequently been blamed for the deterioration of the Turkish economy as a decline in the value of the Turkish lira, nearly 30 percent in 2020, led to higher inflation via imports priced in hard currencies.

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