Three more mayors from Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) were detained on Saturday morning, expanding an ongoing crackdown on the party just months after the arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Turkish Minute reported.
The mayors of the southern cities of Adana and Antalya and the southeastern city of Adıyaman — all elected in the 2024 local elections — were taken into custody as part of two separate corruption investigations. The detentions, announced by party officials and confirmed by the Turkish media, have been strongly criticized by opposition figures as politically motivated.
Adana Metropolitan Mayor Zeydan Karalar and Adıyaman Mayor Abdurrahman Tutdere were detained as part of an investigation led by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which alleges the two were involved in a bribery network orchestrated by businessman Aziz İhsan Aktaş. Aktaş, who was accused of leading a criminal organization to rig public tenders, was released from pretrial detention last month after cooperating with authorities under Turkey’s “effective remorse” law.
Antalya Metropolitan Mayor Muhittin Böcek, on the other hand, was detained as part of a separate investigation launched by the Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office over bribery allegations. According to Turkish media reports, his son was also taken into custody as part of the same probe. The cases are unrelated but come amid a wave of similar charges leveled against CHP municipalities in recent months.
The deputy mayor of İstanbul’s Büyükçekmece district, Ahmet Şahin, was also detained on Saturday, while earlier this week 137 people were detained in a sweeping corruption probe in İzmir, another CHP stronghold. Prosecutors there are reportedly seeking 157 suspects in total.
CHP Chairman Özgür Özel convened an emergency meeting of the party’s Central Executive Board (MYK) in Ankara following the detentions. In a statement party leaders condemned the detentions as part of a broader campaign to undermine elected officials and roll back the results of the 2024 local elections, in which the CHP emerged as the leading party nationwide for the first time in nearly five decades.
“This is a political operation,” said CHP Deputy Chair Burhanettin Bulut, who confirmed Böcek’s detention on social media. “Those who are using the judiciary as a weapon for political revenge are not concerned with justice, but with preserving their own power.”
Karalar, who also serves as deputy chair of the Union of Municipalities of Turkey, addressed his detention in a video filmed in Gebze, where he had been staying at his sister’s home.
“They came to get me in connection with an investigation launched in İstanbul,” Karalar said. “Everyone knows I have nothing to do with illicit money or tricks. This is a process. We will fight. Allah is great. He will hold those who do wrong accountable.”
Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, one of the most senior CHP figures still in office, denounced the detentions as selective and legally unfounded.
“Our mayors are being targeted based on the testimony of a man who was released after allegedly distributing bribes,” Yavaş said. “If he was paying everyone, where are the Justice and Development Party [AKP] officials who took money? Why are they not being investigated? In a country where the law bends to politics, no one can trust in justice.”
CHP Deputy Chair Zeliha Aksaz Şahbaz said the wave of detentions, coupled with broadcast bans against opposition media outlets, constitutes a “coordinated assault on democracy.”
“The mayors of Manavgat, Adıyaman, Adana and Antalya, along with the deputy mayor of Büyükçekmece, are being detained. At the same time, Halk TV and Sözcü TV are facing 10-day blackouts. This is not a coincidence,” she said, referring to earlier detentions in the Manavgat district of Antalya.
The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has recently imposed a 10-day broadcast suspension on opposition-aligned Halk TV and Sözcü TV, accusing the networks of inciting public hatred — a charge both deny.
“No political interpretation needed — the boss has lost his mind,” nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party leader Müsavat Dervişoğlu said when answering reporters’ questions on the latest detentions on Saturday.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which has in recent months engaged in quiet coordination with the government over renewed efforts to end the decades-long Kurdish conflict, also issued a strongly worded statement condemning the arrests.
“This persecution of elected officials must stop,” wrote DEM Party Co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları. “Disregarding the results of democratic elections deepens the rift in our society. These operations block the path to a democratic Turkey.”
The DEM Party’s criticism is particularly significant as it comes amid a fragile political thaw following the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) May announcement to end its armed insurgency — a decision reportedly facilitated in part by indirect contacts involving the DEM Party leadership.
Saturday’s detentions follow the March arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP’s presumptive 2028 presidential candidate, who was jailed on corruption-related charges widely seen as politically driven. His detention and subsequent arrest sparked mass protests across Turkey, the country’s largest wave of civil unrest since the 2013 Gezi Park protests.
Since then, the CHP has organized weekly “Defending the National Will” rallies in various cities. The latest was held in İstanbul earlier this week.
With reporting from Agence France-Presse
