A Turkish court has ordered main opposition leader Özgür Özel to pay President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 300,000 Turkish lira ($6,580) in damages over remarks he made during a July 2025 speech criticizing investigations into municipalities run by his party, Turkish Minute reported.
Erdoğan’s lawyer, Hüseyin Aydın, announced the ruling Wednesday, saying the Ankara 32nd Civil Court of First Instance had awarded damages in a lawsuit filed over Özel’s July 5, 2025, speech at the headquarters of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Aydın said the case was filed because Özel used “unseemly expressions and unjust accusations” targeting Erdoğan. He did not say whether the ruling was final.
Özel’s speech came after a wave of detentions targeting CHP mayors, including the mayors of Adana, Antalya and Adıyaman, three municipalities won by the opposition in the March 2024 local elections.
In the speech Özel accused Erdoğan of remaining silent about allegations involving Aziz İhsan Aktaş, a businessman at the center of several corruption investigations targeting CHP-run municipalities whose statements constituted the grounds for the arrest of opposition mayors.
Özel alleged that Aktaş had provided a luxury Audi to the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) mayor in the western province of Isparta. “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the same man bought this car for your mayor. If you have any honor, dignity or morality at all, then answer,” Özel said.
Özel also accused the government of using the judiciary to pressure the opposition after CHP gains in the 2024 local elections. “This declaration of war was not only against us, but against democratic politics,” he said.
The damages ruling comes amid a continuing judicial campaign against CHP-run municipalities that began in October 2024 with the detention and arrest of Ahmet Özer, the CHP mayor of İstanbul’s Esenyurt district, on terrorism-related charges. Özer denied the accusations, and the CHP called the case politically motivated. He was later removed from office and replaced by a government-appointed trustee.
The campaign intensified after the March 2025 arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival and the CHP’s presidential candidate. CHP officials say the cases are intended to roll back the party’s 2024 local election victory, when it finished first nationwide for the first time since 1977 and won many of Turkey’s biggest cities.
Recent tallies in Turkish media and rights reporting say 23 CHP mayors have been jailed at some point since the 2024 local elections, 20 remain in prison and 25 have been removed from office.
The latest operations continued this week. On Tuesday five people were detained in a new investigation targeting İstanbul’s Beşiktaş Municipality, while courts arrested 27 people in separate investigations into two other CHP-run municipalities.
On Wednesday prosecutors in İzmir ordered the detention of four suspects in an investigation targeting a subsidiary of the CHP-run İzmir Metropolitan Municipality. Three people were detained, while authorities were still seeking a former general manager of İZBETON, a municipality-run company, Turkish media reported. The accusations include bid rigging, forming a criminal organization and membership in a criminal organization.
The government says the investigations concern corruption, bribery and organized crime in municipalities. The CHP says the cases are selective and political, arguing that similar allegations involving AKP municipalities have not produced comparable raids, arrests or removals from office.
The 2025 speech that led to the damages ruling focused on that contrast. Özel said CHP mayors were being jailed over alleged campaign vehicles and municipal tenders, while ruling party officials faced no similar treatment despite allegations involving the same businessman.
The ruling also adds to a long list of legal actions Erdoğan and his lawyers have brought against opposition figures, journalists and critics over remarks deemed to violate his personal rights or insult the president. Turkish opposition parties and rights groups say such lawsuits have narrowed the space for political speech.
