An İstanbul court on Monday acquitted 88 people in two cases stemming from protests against the detention of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, while two defendants received prison sentences over social media posts, the ANKA news agency reported.
The İstanbul 65th Criminal Court of First Instance heard both cases, each involving 45 defendants. It cleared 44 people in each case of violating the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations.
The remaining defendant in each case received a suspended sentence of more than seven months for inciting others to commit a crime through a social media post.
The protests began after police detained İmamoğlu on March 19, 2025. He was jailed pending trial on corruption charges four days later. The Republican People’s Party (CHP), at the time Turkey’s main opposition party, which chose him as its presidential candidate, views the prosecution as an attempt to sideline President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest political rival.
Thousands gathered outside City Hall before demonstrations spread across Turkey, becoming the country’s largest wave of street protests in more than a decade. Police detained nearly 2,000 people, including students and journalists, with many subsequently facing prosecution.
İstanbul Bar Association President İbrahim Kaboğlu attended the hearing and claimed that police had relied on an unlawful protest ban imposed by the İstanbul Governor’s Office, recalling that the ban had subsequently been annulled by an administrative court.
Monday’s decisions follow a series of acquittals in cases arising from the demonstrations. In November 2025 an İstanbul court acquitted 87 defendants after the prosecutor said their conduct fell within the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and did not constitute a crime.
A day earlier, four photographers, including Agence France-Presse’s Yasin Akgül, were acquitted after being prosecuted under the law on demonstrations for covering the protests. Their detention had prompted condemnation from press freedom organizations and AFP.
The Media and Law Studies Association, which monitors freedom of expression trials, reported in July that 542 people had been acquitted in 10 trials originating from protests against İmamoğlu’s detention. The verdicts were issued between October 2025 and July 2026.
Those defendants included journalists, lawyers and numerous students.
İmamoğlu, who was first elected İstanbul mayor in 2019, was jailed on March 23, 2025, as the CHP selected him as its presidential candidate.
In the main municipality case, prosecutors accuse him of leading a criminal organization, with charges including bribery, fraud, bid rigging, money laundering and unlawfully obtaining personal data.
He also faces a separate political espionage trial over allegations that municipal data was passed to foreign intelligence services. He denies both sets of accusations.
The CHP says the prosecutions aim to prevent him from challenging Erdoğan. Human Rights Watch has criticized the cases as an effort to remove İmamoğlu from politics and discredit the opposition.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
