At least 10,000 people joined an opposition rally at İstanbul City Hall Tuesday on the 100th day since the city’s popular mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was jailed in what critics say was a politically-motivated graft probe.
The rally came hours after police rounded up more than 120 people linked to City Hall in İzmir, an opposition stronghold and Turkey’s third city, in the latest move targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s opponents.
The early-morning detentions were part of a probe into alleged graft and followed similar lines to the March 19 operation in opposition-run İstanbul when dozens were detained and subsequently arrested, including İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival.
İmamoğlu’s removal sparked a wave of mass protests with hundreds of thousands rallying outside City Hall, also known as Saraçhane, at the urging of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) which also called Tuesday’s protest.
“Today, we are all together at the very place where everything began.. this struggle is against fascism, this is the fight for freedom,” CHP leader Özgür Özel shouted, addressing the crowd in his trademark husky voice.
“On March 19, you stood shoulder to shoulder in Saraçhane. You shouted for justice. You stood for your will. You stood behind the one you elected… I am proud of every one of you,” he said.
Addressing Erdoğan directly over efforts to remove İmamoğlu’s image from billboards from across the city, he added: “You fear Mayor Ekrem’s posters, his brochures, his photograph and his voice. But fear is futile in the face of destiny.
“You will go. Ekrem İmamoğlu will become president.”
The March protests, which initially turned into nightly running battles with riot police, quickly spread from Istanbul across the country in Turkey’s worst street unrest in over a decade.
Nearly 2,000 people were arrested, among them many students as well as a handful of journalists.
Although the nightly protests ended after a week, the CHP has continued to hold rallies across Turkey, boosting its standing in the polls.
‘Just like in İstanbul’
Among those arrested in İzmir was the city’s former mayor and numerous “senior officials” in a city that the opposition has run for years, CHP’s deputy chairman Murat Bakan said.
“This process is similar to what happened in İstanbul,” he wrote on X.
“These dawn arrests are not a legal need but are a clear political choice. These people are in the public eye every day. If they had been called to testify, they would have done so,” he said.
İzmir public prosecutor’s office has issued detention warrants for a total 157 people, local media reported.
It was the latest in a slew of legal maneuvers targeting the CHP, which aced last year’s local elections and is rising in the polls.
On Monday, an Ankara court began hearing a case against the CHP involving allegations of vote-buying at its 2023 leadership primary.
The case could end up overturning the election of Özel, whose rousing nightly addresses to the İstanbul crowds in March turned him into the poster child of the protest movement.
Critics say the case is another politically motivated attempt to undermine the CHP following the move against İmamoğlu, which the party denounced as a “coup.”
“No conspiracy against our party is ever unrelated to the March 19 coup,” Özel wrote on X.
At Monday’s hearing, the judge adjourning the proceedings until September 8 over a question of jurisdiction.
The İzmir detentions came as firefighters continued to battle several large wildfires raging near the western resort city, which have forced the evacuation of more than 45,000 people in the area.
© Agence France-Presse
