A Turkish court on Tuesday handed down a suspended fine to Özlem Ünal, a senior official in the youth wing of the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP), for allegedly insulting a police officer in Kocaeli province during protests triggered by the detention of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
According to the Sözcü daily, the Kocaeli 14th Court of First Instance imposed a fine of 35,400 lira (around $800) on Ünal for “insulting a public official” but suspended the sentence for five years, meaning she will not pay the fine unless she commits a similar offense within that time period.
During the hearing Ünal said the words cited in the indictment were directed at people jostling her. She added that there no officials in uniform were present at the location, making it impossible to distinguish police from civilians and journalists.
The protests were part of a nationwide wave of demonstrations triggered by the March 19, 2025, detention of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, widely seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest political rival. He was later arrested on corruption charges that critics say are politically motivated and aimed at sidelining him ahead of the 2028 general election.
Nearly 2,000 people, including teenagers, students, lawyers, journalists, union leaders and human rights defenders, were detained nationwide during the protests that erupted after İmamoğlu’s detention. Some 300 of them were arrested.
The pressure on the CHP and its municipalities has intensified since then. The party and its supporters say the operations targeting the CHP are designed to neutralize elected officials and sideline opposition leaders after the party’s gains in the March 2024 local elections.
As the crackdown on the CHP intensifies, youth leaders of the party have increasingly become targets of prosecution. Cem Aydın, head of the party’s youth wing, received in February a suspended sentence of more than one year for insulting Akın Gürlek during his tenure as İstanbul chief public prosecutor. The same day, Ramazan Yıldız, head of the CHP youth branch in İstanbul’s Adalar district, was also arrested over a social media post criticizing Gürlek after he was named justice minister.
